No, solely because they half implemented something sensible as a concept (reducing needless side grades, consolidating some options in the same design space, making options equal but for different tasks hence enough needing different points).
They then proceeded to stop what seems like less than 5% of the way through the process and just thought "nahhh whatever sticks, sticks".
Even with what we have they could have made it better. Imagine if the battlewagon rather than being the same points for a naked transport, and a model with all the upgrades, now came with all the upgrades as a default loadout so could have a price tag appropriate and people needn't care about wysiwyg as every battlewagon is the same.
So far I absolutely hate it.
You're forced to pick one:
* glue random bits to your models to represent free wargear
* no longer play wysiwyg * straight up nerf your units by not bringing free upgrades
All three suck, with the cherry on top that if you go and add bits to your units, you might get fethed over if GW decides to move away from the current concept again.
nekooni wrote: So far I absolutely hate it.
You're forced to pick one:
* glue random bits to your models to represent free wargear
* no longer play wysiwyg * straight up nerf your units by not bringing free upgrades
All three suck, with the cherry on top that if you go and add bits to your units, you might get fethed over if GW decides to move away from the current concept again.
Yes points where always badly handled, making weapon options different in how they operate with the points baked into the unit is a much better way to do it.
It also means the game is more about fun and not micro adjustments to squeeze out the most optimal peak performance from every single point... you know, the tournament mindset that has been making the game a bit dull.
This is a return to fun, and for people to be able to build their models how they like without having to worry about whether that configuration would mean the unit/model puts their force over the points limit.
stonehorse wrote: Yes points where always badly handled, making weapon options different in how they operate with the points baked into the unit is a much better way to do it.
It also means the game is more about fu and not micro adjustments to squeeze out the most optimal peak performance from every single point... you know, the tournament mindset that has been making the game a bit dull.
This is a return to fun, and for people to be able to build their models how they like without having to worry about whether that configuration would mean the unit/model puts their force over the points limit.
It's also a system where you can play someone using the same units with outright better gear than yours and not being any worse off for doing so.
I'm not particularly worried about this weapon option being better than that option (usually) but it can cause some problems with filling out the tail end of a list.
I really dislike the 3 or 6 not 3 up to 6 - though not so much on the 5-10 (especially if they up the Drop Pod to 12 for Unit + attached which they should have for the Tac Squad with a Cap/LT) - I just have a mental block over 100/6.
I'd like to see some very minor Unit level enhancements that do the 5-10 point bumps to get you to 2000 even.
no and it has killed my interest in 10th, the general rules are ok, no real difference from 9th other than side shifts, as usual GW is lying about the marketing of making things simpler, it is not, they just moved the bloat from one place to another.
A lot of the games integral core issues still remain, lack of an initiative stat means pointless rules have to exist in order to replace said stat.
Lack of terrain rules, decent line of sight rules, removal of psychic phase when more interaction was needed, keeping the I go, you go, mechanic rather than alternating activations, lack of templates meaning even more rules are required to compensate.
The name change of power level to points is just the icing on the cake for me.
I have mixed feelings, I guess because I liked power Level, and I also liked points and felt they were good for different things.
A lot of people are saying that WYSIWYG is dead, but my experience of PL is the opposite.
With PL and I imagine in 10th my group played WYSIWYG with PL and much less so with points.
For PL we took our models as they are built and and played them 100% WYSIWYG because we didn’t need to worry about going over the points limit or being inefficient choices etc, whereas points were for more competitive games where we wanted to squeeze efficiency out of the army list and 5 points on a sergeant here or there could take you over the points limit for the game.
stonehorse wrote: Yes points where always badly handled, making weapon options different in how they operate with the points baked into the unit is a much better way to do it.
It also means the game is more about fu and not micro adjustments to squeeze out the most optimal peak performance from every single point... you know, the tournament mindset that has been making the game a bit dull.
This is a return to fun, and for people to be able to build their models how they like without having to worry about whether that configuration would mean the unit/model puts their force over the points limit.
It's also a system where you can play someone using the same units with outright better gear than yours and not being any worse off for doing so.
Not sure it is fair to say gear is better or worse, it seems to be that all gear has a role to play against different targets. Take Tactical Squads for example, Flamer is good at close range against Light to Medium Infantry, Melta gun is good at close range against Vehicles, Plasma Gun is good at close range against Monsters and Heavy Infantry.
Hmm, even casual games should be *fair*, though - the basic starting point for a game with your mate is 2 armies that should be of roughly equal power.
And if one player has gone all-out with upgrades whereas the other hasn't, this new points scheme doesn't deliver that, imo.
Slinky wrote: Hmm, even casual games should be *fair*, though - the basic starting point for a game with your mate is 2 armies that should be of roughly equal power.
And if one player has gone all-out with upgrades whereas the other hasn't, this new points scheme doesn't deliver that, imo.
It is virtually impossible to make things in a game like 40k fair, due to the staggering amount of variables, from terrain type, terrain layout, amount of terrain, mission, and also the players choice in unit/model selection. There is simply too much to factor in to make it fair, it will never be fair. So, with that in mind the best cause of action is to make it about fun, and make wargear upgrades more about different battlefield roles and Tey to keep them So different that none of them is a no brained and is better than the rest. That way it rewards a balanced force, as it can perform a lot of battlefield roles.
Also, some of the best games I have had are ines where I have been utterly up against what was an unwinnable situation, it then became a 'how well can I perform when the odds are so stacked against me'. Sometimes the challenge of the situation (as long as the opponent is a good sport) is more rewarding than a win. Because ultimately, this is a game of plastic toy soldiers... so should be approached in that way.
stonehorse wrote: Yes points where always badly handled, making weapon options different in how they operate with the points baked into the unit is a much better way to do it.
It also means the game is more about fu and not micro adjustments to squeeze out the most optimal peak performance from every single point... you know, the tournament mindset that has been making the game a bit dull.
This is a return to fun, and for people to be able to build their models how they like without having to worry about whether that configuration would mean the unit/model puts their force over the points limit.
It's also a system where you can play someone using the same units with outright better gear than yours and not being any worse off for doing so.
Not sure it is fair to say gear is better or worse, it seems to be that all gear has a role to play against different targets. Take Tactical Squads for example, Flamer is good at close range against Light to Medium Infantry, Melta gun is good at close range against Vehicles, Plasma Gun is good at close range against Monsters and Heavy Infantry.
Leman Russes, for example.
They may take sponson weapons (Heavy Bolter, Plasma Cannon, Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer) but they don't have too. They also don't need to take a pintle-weapon (Heavy Stubber, Stormbolter) or a Hunterkiller Missile. Under the old system, all that was accounted for, but now if you run a Leman Russ without sponsons, pintle-weapon and missile you are objectively using a worse vehicle configuration for the same cost.
stonehorse wrote: Not sure it is fair to say gear is better or worse, it seems to be that all gear has a role to play against different targets. Take Tactical Squads for example, Flamer is good at close range against Light to Medium Infantry, Melta gun is good at close range against Vehicles, Plasma Gun is good at close range against Monsters and Heavy Infantry.
Weapons might have preferred targets against which they excel at, but that does not mean that they are all equal in points. GW knows this. Wargear had different upgrade points for the past 9 editions of the game. Flamers were still better against light infantry horde than a lascannon, just like now.
If you bring a Rhino and a Devastator squad with nothing but boltguns and your opponent brings a Rhino and a Devastator squad with 4 lascannons, he will have the stronger loadout than you without giving up anything in return. Bear in mind that there are units out there where every model can upgrade to something that is outright better than the default wargear. Why should you ever not do it then? Only out of fear that GW might revert this design philosophy at some point.
What would you think about having fixed unit costs, regardless if you bring 5 or 10 man sized units? Makes as much sense as the weapon upgrades.
I thought magnets have been the name of the game for more than a decade now anyway.
Maybe GW should go the way PP went eith the new edition of Warmachine and make new kits specifically designed with magnet use in mind (sockets in models, magnets included in kits etc)?
I have... mixed feelings, we'll see how this all works out in practice, in theory it's actually kinda a decent idea as it takes a lot of the more granular math out of list building.
That said the tourny scene will be FILLED with TFGs finding ways to abuse this (course it's always filled with TFGs finding ways to be abusive)
So I imagine we'll see the tourny drama
stonehorse wrote: Yes points where always badly handled, making weapon options different in how they operate with the points baked into the unit is a much better way to do it.
It also means the game is more about fu and not micro adjustments to squeeze out the most optimal peak performance from every single point... you know, the tournament mindset that has been making the game a bit dull.
This is a return to fun, and for people to be able to build their models how they like without having to worry about whether that configuration would mean the unit/model puts their force over the points limit.
It's also a system where you can play someone using the same units with outright better gear than yours and not being any worse off for doing so.
Not sure it is fair to say gear is better or worse, it seems to be that all gear has a role to play against different targets. Take Tactical Squads for example, Flamer is good at close range against Light to Medium Infantry, Melta gun is good at close range against Vehicles, Plasma Gun is good at close range against Monsters and Heavy Infantry.
Leman Russes, for example.
They may take sponson weapons (Heavy Bolter, Plasma Cannon, Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer) but they don't have too. They also don't need to take a pintle-weapon (Heavy Stubber, Stormbolter) or a Hunterkiller Missile. Under the old system, all that was accounted for, but now if you run a Leman Russ without sponsons, pintle-weapon and missile you are objectively using a worse vehicle configuration for the same cost.
Lack of sponson weapons also gives the Leman Russ a slimmer profile, allowing it to fit through tighter gaps, also gives it less that can be measured to and seen. So can have a very situational advantage.
As for pintal mounted weapons, in all my 30+ years of gaming I have yet to see a Leman Russ without a pintal mounted weapon, so that is not going to happen.
stonehorse wrote: Not sure it is fair to say gear is better or worse, it seems to be that all gear has a role to play against different targets. Take Tactical Squads for example, Flamer is good at close range against Light to Medium Infantry, Melta gun is good at close range against Vehicles, Plasma Gun is good at close range against Monsters and Heavy Infantry.
Weapons might have preferred targets against which they excel at, but that does not mean that they are all equal in points. GW knows this. Wargear had different upgrade points for the past 9 editions of the game. Flamers were still better against light infantry horde than a lascannon, just like now.
If you bring a Rhino and a Devastator squad with nothing but boltguns and your opponent brings a Rhino and a Devastator squad with 4 lascannons, he will have the stronger loadout than you without giving up anything in return. Bear in mind that there are units out there where every model can upgrade to something that is outright better than the default wargear. Why should you ever not do it then? Only out of fear that GW might revert this design philosophy at some point.
What would you think about having fixed unit costs, regardless if you bring 5 or 10 man sized units? Makes as much sense as the weapon upgrades.
No one takes a unit if Devastators with just Boltguns, at that stage why are they even calling them Devastators, when they are I fact a Tactical Squad. Made up scenarios that are never going to happen in the real world don't make the point you are trying to make.
stonehorse wrote: Yes points where always badly handled, making weapon options different in how they operate with the points baked into the unit is a much better way to do it.
It also means the game is more about fu and not micro adjustments to squeeze out the most optimal peak performance from every single point... you know, the tournament mindset that has been making the game a bit dull.
This is a return to fun, and for people to be able to build their models how they like without having to worry about whether that configuration would mean the unit/model puts their force over the points limit.
It's also a system where you can play someone using the same units with outright better gear than yours and not being any worse off for doing so.
Not sure it is fair to say gear is better or worse, it seems to be that all gear has a role to play against different targets. Take Tactical Squads for example, Flamer is good at close range against Light to Medium Infantry, Melta gun is good at close range against Vehicles, Plasma Gun is good at close range against Monsters and Heavy Infantry.
Leman Russes, for example. They may take sponson weapons (Heavy Bolter, Plasma Cannon, Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer) but they don't have too. They also don't need to take a pintle-weapon (Heavy Stubber, Stormbolter) or a Hunterkiller Missile. Under the old system, all that was accounted for, but now if you run a Leman Russ without sponsons, pintle-weapon and missile you are objectively using a worse vehicle configuration for the same cost.
Lack of sponson weapons also gives the Leman Russ a slimmer profile, allowing it to fit through tighter gaps, also gives it less that can be measured to and seen. So can have a very situational advantage.
As for pintal mounted weapons, in all my 30+ years of gaming I have yet to see a Leman Russ without a pintal mounted weapon, so that is not going to happen.
Funny, because I've seen many a Leman Russ without pintle-weapons on the tabletop. And also never with a missile.
stonehorse wrote: Yes points where always badly handled, making weapon options different in how they operate with the points baked into the unit is a much better way to do it.
It also means the game is more about fu and not micro adjustments to squeeze out the most optimal peak performance from every single point... you know, the tournament mindset that has been making the game a bit dull.
This is a return to fun, and for people to be able to build their models how they like without having to worry about whether that configuration would mean the unit/model puts their force over the points limit.
It's also a system where you can play someone using the same units with outright better gear than yours and not being any worse off for doing so.
Not sure it is fair to say gear is better or worse, it seems to be that all gear has a role to play against different targets. Take Tactical Squads for example, Flamer is good at close range against Light to Medium Infantry, Melta gun is good at close range against Vehicles, Plasma Gun is good at close range against Monsters and Heavy Infantry.
Leman Russes, for example.
They may take sponson weapons (Heavy Bolter, Plasma Cannon, Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer) but they don't have too. They also don't need to take a pintle-weapon (Heavy Stubber, Stormbolter) or a Hunterkiller Missile. Under the old system, all that was accounted for, but now if you run a Leman Russ without sponsons, pintle-weapon and missile you are objectively using a worse vehicle configuration for the same cost.
Lack of sponson weapons also gives the Leman Russ a slimmer profile, allowing it to fit through tighter gaps, also gives it less that can be measured to and seen. So can have a very situational advantage.
As for pintal mounted weapons, in all my 30+ years of gaming I have yet to see a Leman Russ without a pintal mounted weapon, so that is not going to happen.
Funny, because I've seen many a Leman Russ without pintle-weapons on the tabletop.
And also never with a missile.
Course you have, next you'll be telling me that the player with these Leman Russes would have won the game if they had those extra shots from the pintal Mounted Storm Bolter.
stonehorse wrote: No one takes a unit if Devastators with just Boltguns, at that stage why are they even calling them Devastators, when they are I fact a Tactical Squad. Made up scenarios that are never going to happen in the real world don't make the point you are trying to make.
You said in this very thread:
stonehorse wrote: Yes points where always badly handled, making weapon options different in how they operate with the points baked into the unit is a much better way to do it.
It also means the game is more about fun and not micro adjustments to squeeze out the most optimal peak performance from every single point... you know, the tournament mindset that has been making the game a bit dull.
This is a return to fun, and for people to be able to build their models how they like without having to worry about whether that configuration would mean the unit/model puts their force over the points limit.
"No one takes a unit of Devastators with just Boltguns" is a reaction from you because YOU KNOW that this is a sub-optimal choice. Boltguns handle differently and are better against lightly armored hordes than lascannons. Just like flamers. Maybe that choice should be handled by the game system with something like... making it so if you take 4 lascannons, you can take less models in total?
How about a Tactical squad with just boltguns and one with all the (in older editions) most expensive upgrades? Why is "This is a return to fun, and for people to be able to build their models how they like" suddenly something "nobody would ever do" if I take a "bad" loadout on purpose? Since points are the same, why is my loadout worse?
If the power of different loadouts vary so much, why is there no difference during list creation?
I only ever see this horsegak trotted out in this site. IRL nothing could be further from the truth. Go on, play with a load of random stuff and see how many return opponent you get.
GW themselves even call out WYSIWYG in their tournament packs (page 5). If players are so hell-bent on inserting tournament rules in the main game, then you can't cherry pick which ones you want to insert. Also, "no model no rules." Why would that be a thing if WYSIWYG did not exist?
Well thatbis a first, still haven't seen any Leman Russes in that configuration in real life (photos can be altered so... sadly not always reliable). The one with the Commissar, could easily be counts as a Storm Bolter. First and third one, can't be that hard to just put on a pingal mounted weapon or use counts as. If your opponent says no to the above,find better opponents.
stonehorse wrote: No one takes a unit if Devastators with just Boltguns, at that stage why are they even calling them Devastators, when they are I fact a Tactical Squad. Made up scenarios that are never going to happen in the real world don't make the point you are trying to make.
You said in this very thread:
stonehorse wrote: Yes points where always badly handled, making weapon options different in how they operate with the points baked into the unit is a much better way to do it.
It also means the game is more about fun and not micro adjustments to squeeze out the most optimal peak performance from every single point... you know, the tournament mindset that has been making the game a bit dull.
This is a return to fun, and for people to be able to build their models how they like without having to worry about whether that configuration would mean the unit/model puts their force over the points limit.
"No one takes a unit of Devastators with just Boltguns" is a reaction from you because YOU KNOW that this is a sub-optimal choice. Boltguns handle differently and are better against lightly armored hordes than lascannons. Just like flamers. Maybe that choice should be handled by the game system with something like... making it so if you take 4 lascannons, you can take less models in total?
How about a Tactical squad with just boltguns and one with all the (in older editions) most expensive upgrades? Why is "This is a return to fun, and for people to be able to build their models how they like" suddenly something "nobody would ever do" if I take a "bad" loadout on purpose? Since points are the same, why is my loadout worse?
If the power of different loadouts vary so much, why is there no difference during list creation?
No it is not a reaction, if someone where to use a full 10 man unit of Devastators with just Boltguns than they are deliberately doing something moronic to try and show how the points don't work. I mean you could take such a unit, but that doesn't mean you should. Doing so to prove a point is being a bit of a TFG.
stonehorse wrote: The game is meant to be a casual tea and crumpets sort of game.
Sure isn't sold or advertised that way.
You can always opt to play a lopsided game in a balanced system by knowingly weakening yourself. Playing a 'fair' game in an unbalanced system takes a whole lot more effort than 'tea and crumpets' - which is why you don't get to move twice as far if you pick the car in monopoly, or get twice as many players on one side of the foosball table.
It's why casual games should always strive for an an even playing field. Highly competitive games at least have the excuse of 'punishing' players for taking sub-optimal choices.
stonehorse wrote: The game is meant to be a casual tea and crumpets sort of game.
Sure isn't sold or advertised that way.
Funny, as 9th was quite clearly "40k- tournament edition" as the rot had set in fully from GW bowing down to the tournament "celebrities" and the utter cancer they bring to this game. People were still in denial when Chapter Approved was called the "Grand Tournament Pack". The 10th points are just more examples of this and cookie cutter 40k brought on by inattentive Gen Z players with zero attention spans who worship at the feet of these tournament players is the end result.
Pack it up lads, we're in the last days of Rome...
You do have to make it clear what models have what weapons. But there are honestly clearer ways than taking weapons on and off troop models
Go on then, I'll bite. What are they? As typically SEEING what you get and the models having a visual representation of it is quite clear and the best way to represent what gear they have in a visual game.
stonehorse wrote: Well thatbis a first, still haven't seen any Leman Russes in that configuration in real life (photos can be altered so... sadly not always reliable). The one with the Commissar, could easily be counts as a Storm Bolter. First and third one, can't be that hard to just put on a pingal mounted weapon or use counts as. If your opponent says no to the above,find better opponents.
The picture you are commenting on was uploaded by the same user in 2017. I highly doubt the sponsons and pintle-mounted weapons were photoshopped away in the past just to win a possible argument in the future 6 years later.
stonehorse wrote: No it is not a reaction, if someone where to use a full 10 man unit of Devastators with just Boltguns than they are deliberately doing something moronic to try and show how the points don't work. I mean you could take such a unit, but that doesn't mean you should. Doing so to prove a point is being a bit of a TFG.
I think you like to label people with negative words if they challenge your opinion.
So far:
- If you want to have point differences between options, you have a tournament mindset which is bad for the game.
- If you prove with pictures from your own army that you have built units in a specific configuration, you might have altered the picture.
- If you take a loadout which costs the same points as something else, but is CLEARLY INFERIOR to everyone with a working brain, you have TFG energy.
Your argument would work if the options are actually close enough in performance. But the fact ist, that boltgun only (or any other default wargear) units exist and are legal to field next to the exact same units with EVERY possible upgrade under the sun.
No it is not a reaction, if someone where to use a full 10 man unit of Devastators with just Boltguns than they are deliberately doing something moronic to try and show how the points don't work. I mean you could take such a unit, but that doesn't mean you should. Doing so to prove a point is being a bit of a TFG.
So I'm a "bit of a TFG" for owning a Leman Russ without sponsons and complaining that it suddenly costs the exact same as one of my other Leman Russ that are obviously superior in firepower? wow.
Funny, as 9th was quite clearly "40k- tournament edition" as the rot had set in fully from GW bowing down to the tournament "celebrities" and the utter cancer they bring to this game. People were still in denial when Chapter Approved was called the "Grand Tournament Pack". The 10th points are just more examples of this and cookie cutter 40k brought on by inattentive Gen Z players with zero attention spans who worship at the feet of these tournament players is the end result.
Pack it up lads, we're in the last days of Rome...
Do I like losing different type of melee weapons, having str 6 thunder hammers and nutered psychic powers? No I don't. I also don't like having any serious offensive power in units and a downgrade to dreadnoughts. Even NDKs , which I do not own and don't want to use, wierd.
I don't like how marines limitations are put on my units, but stuff that marines have to balance it were "missed".
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Lammia 810334 11551251 wrote:That's WHW rules set though. Not even the most power tripping TOs have enforced those level of rules.
You do have to make it clear what models have what weapons. But there are honestly clearer ways than taking weapons on and off troop models
Maybe in Australia it is like that. But where I live people playing DG were not happy in early 8th that the squad leader from dark empire comes with a plasma gun on his back. Of course back then they didn't yet know what it means to be really unhappy.
Funny, as 9th was quite clearly "40k- tournament edition" as the rot had set in fully from GW bowing down to the tournament "celebrities" and the utter cancer they bring to this game. People were still in denial when Chapter Approved was called the "Grand Tournament Pack". The 10th points are just more examples of this and cookie cutter 40k brought on by inattentive Gen Z players with zero attention spans who worship at the feet of these tournament players is the end result.
Pack it up lads, we're in the last days of Rome...
I'm not even Gen Z, but... OK, boomer.
Lol, seriously, I teach undergrads and yeah, a lot of them have like no attention if they're bored but they're also teens and teens surrounded by shiny tech designed to be addictive, and by continual global crises: of course they're easily distracted, but that doesn't mean anything but they're easily distracted. This new points system might very well be based off some marketing guru's perception of the new generation, but those kids encroaching on your lawn are plenty smart enough to do basic math and then some.
Oh, and more on topic: yeah this new system is awful. I think 40k could have easily been abstracted to multiples of 5 points, tiers of weapons, etc., because yeah I don't believe the game has ever been balanced finely enough that 1 point in 2000 is I think ever going to be accurate, but there's also plenty of gear that could be represented with abstracted but present costs: we don't need to pretend that we can justify a lascannon's game value may be quantified as exactly 12 points, but we can say that a lascannon's game value is more than the bolter it replaces.
You do have to make it clear what models have what weapons. But there are honestly clearer ways than taking weapons on and off troop models
Go on then, I'll bite. What are they? As typically SEEING what you get and the models having a visual representation of it is quite clear and the best way to represent what gear they have in a visual game.
Well, I'm a fan of using paint. But there are other tools you can use too. Hell, give them different flags that stick to the base, that way you can remove the models you want without checking their weapon first
You do have to make it clear what models have what weapons. But there are honestly clearer ways than taking weapons on and off troop models
Go on then, I'll bite. What are they? As typically SEEING what you get and the models having a visual representation of it is quite clear and the best way to represent what gear they have in a visual game.
Well, I'm a fan of using paint. But there are other tools you can use too. Hell, give them different flags that stick to the base, that way you can remove the models you want without checking their weapon first
For even greater clarity at a distance, you can even replace all your models with colored cardboard tokens
Grimtuff wrote: brought on by inattentive Gen Z players with zero attention spans who worship at the feet of these tournament players is the end result.
Some units are complete points sinks unless you take every single best weapon. Lower tier weapons are useless when everything costs the same. Tank have to have sponsons or they’re wasting points?
I was ok with them dumbing down the core rules for Little Timmy, but when have the dumbed down list building for people that can’t manage basic addition…?
Also the arbitrary squad sizes are a joke. I buy a box of 5 Custodes Wardens but can only use them in groups of 3 or 6? What is wrong with 3-6? Yet Custodes Guard can’t be taken in 3s or 6s, but you can take them in 9s.
No it is not a reaction, if someone where to use a full 10 man unit of Devastators with just Boltguns than they are deliberately doing something moronic to try and show how the points don't work. I mean you could take such a unit, but that doesn't mean you should. Doing so to prove a point is being a bit of a TFG.
So I'm a "bit of a TFG" for owning a Leman Russ without sponsons and complaining that it suddenly costs the exact same as one of my other Leman Russ that are obviously superior in firepower? wow.
No, that is not what I said and I think you know that. What I said was if anyone deliberately takes a 10 man unit of DEVASTATORS with just bolt guns, they are doing so fully aware that what they are doing is fully within the rules, but is not what DEVASTATORS are there for. No one in their right mind buys a box of DEVASTATORS, looks at the cool, big heavy weapons, and goes, 'do you know what, I think I'll equip them with these basic run of the mill Boltguns, because that'd be awesome!'
Hope that clears things up, anyway... I've got more important things to do than waste my time with this foolishness, if you want to field 10 men DEVASTATORS all with Bolt Guns, so you can say the points system is flawed, be my guest, but anyone with half a functioning brain, will see right through your attempt at trying to find fault.
I wouldn't have minded, if all options are equally viable, or at least all have viable roles. Flamer vs Grenade Launcher vs Meltagun vs Plasmagun still has clear winners.
And then there's the Leman Russ with or without sponsons, or the 10000 upgrades on a battlewagon. Those are more clear problems, but they could have been addressed (increased speed without upgrades? Transport cap on the wagon?)
If those issues had been handled, I would have been somewhat ok with the stealth switch to PL. As it stands, this looks like amateur hour.
stonehorse wrote: The game is meant to be a casual tea and crumpets sort of game.
Sure isn't sold or advertised that way.
Eh. It actually is.
A vocal chunk of the player base is totally against it being treated that way (and instead its serious business), but GW has been rather consistent that its a pretty casual set of rules and they aren't going to fuss too hard about it. Its been the major disconnect (for decades) between how the studio designs and plays the game and how people out in the world play.
I am very happy to see them moving the army building mechanics of the game in a more lore friendly direction. I hate seeing all these list that are built for points efficiency and thus lack any upgrades at all. I like the idea that every squad is armed with special weapons and would love to see that on the battlefield.
I am also happy to see them upgrading the weapons rules to make options more sidegrades than upgrades. The Terminator datasheet is a great example. Powerfist and Chainfist are both compelling choices. The same can be said for the Assault Cannon, Cyclone Missile Launcher, and Heavy Flamer.
However, other such attempts fall flat. There is never a reason to pick a Laspistol or Bolt Pistol over a Plasma Pistol. The same is true for a Chainsword over a Power Weapon. A bit more design work could have made these interesting choices also. So that leave these unbalanced choices along with the purely optional choices (Leman Russ Sponsons) as areas that need points to balance them out. This is where the new unit upgrade rules fail the most.
No it is not a reaction, if someone where to use a full 10 man unit of Devastators with just Boltguns than they are deliberately doing something moronic to try and show how the points don't work. I mean you could take such a unit, but that doesn't mean you should. Doing so to prove a point is being a bit of a TFG.
So I'm a "bit of a TFG" for owning a Leman Russ without sponsons and complaining that it suddenly costs the exact same as one of my other Leman Russ that are obviously superior in firepower? wow.
No, that is not what I said and I think you know that. What I said was if anyone deliberately takes a 10 man unit of DEVASTATORS with just bolt guns, they are doing so fully aware that what they are doing is fully within the rules, but is not what DEVASTATORS are there for. No one in their right mind buys a box of DEVASTATORS, looks at the cool, big heavy weapons, and goes, 'do you know what, I think I'll equip them with these basic run of the mill Boltguns, because that'd be awesome!'
Hope that clears things up, anyway... I've got more important things to do than waste my time with this foolishness, if you want to field 10 men DEVASTATORS all with Bolt Guns, so you can say the points system is flawed, be my guest, but anyone with half a functioning brain, will see right through your attempt at trying to find fault.
I never mention devastators, I was only asking if the same applies to a sponsonless LR. Because the principle is the same - I have to pay the same, for no good reason. That's the major flaw with PL, and it's a massive issue now that this was applied to points as well. Whoever brought up the devastators was providing you with an example, and instead of taking it as an example, you attack the person behind the argument. Just like you're doing now, again, instead of addressing the argument.
alextroy wrote: I am very happy to see them moving the army building mechanics of the game in a more lore friendly direction. I hate seeing all these list that are built for points efficiency and thus lack any upgrades at all. I like the idea that every squad is armed with special weapons and would love to see that on the battlefield.
I am also happy to see them upgrading the weapons rules to make options more sidegrades than upgrades. The Terminator datasheet is a great example. Powerfist and Chainfist are both compelling choices. The same can be said for the Assault Cannon, Cyclone Missile Launcher, and Heavy Flamer.
However, other such attempts fall flat. There is never a reason to pick a Laspistol or Bolt Pistol over a Plasma Pistol. The same is true for a Chainsword over a Power Weapon. A bit more design work could have made these interesting choices also. So that leave these unbalanced choices along with the purely optional choices (Leman Russ Sponsons) as areas that need points to balance them out. This is where the new unit upgrade rules fail the most.
The problem with this system is they decided to universalize it when it doesn't work like that.
There are a lot of units where there are no meaningful choices and its fine. Most Daemon units, for example. If bloodletters are over or under valued, change the points for the unit and problem solved.
Even sergeant-class models are fine. Which Whacking Stick they have doesn't really matter and its not going to turn the game if you assume their weapons are all worth 5 points rather than 0 or 10. 10 intercessors can be worth XX points regardless of whether or not the sarge does an extra 0.6 wounds in combat specifically against MEQ or GEQ, but does 0.7 less wounds in combat against vehicles.
Plasma pistols are a weird case because there isn't any way around how superior they are to the alternatives.
The problem is units like devastators, havocs or even hearthkyn warriors. If grav cannons or magna rifles (somehow, with its current stats) are overperforming, then raising the price on the unit makes all the other options even worse. It theoretically 'solves' the problem with the overpowered option, but creates an even larger imbalance in the unit. There simply is no way to fix it at the 'unit costs XX points level.' You have to go back to per-weapon costs to successfully solve a problem. (or nerf the weapon *stares at desolators*)
stonehorse wrote: Yes points where always badly handled, making weapon options different in how they operate with the points baked into the unit is a much better way to do it.
stonehorse wrote: Not sure it is fair to say gear is better or worse, it seems to be that all gear has a role to play against different targets. Take Tactical Squads for example, Flamer is good at close range against Light to Medium Infantry, Melta gun is good at close range against Vehicles, Plasma Gun is good at close range against Monsters and Heavy Infantry.
stonehorse wrote: Hope that clears things up, anyway... I've got more important things to do than waste my time with this foolishness, if you want to field 10 men DEVASTATORS all with Bolt Guns, so you can say the points system is flawed, be my guest, but anyone with half a functioning brain, will see right through your attempt at trying to find fault.
A little bit of a schizophrenic take, innit?. On one side the new system is better, because upgrades can't be qualified as being better or worse, as long as they have different profiles for different targets, but on the other side there are clear examples where you agree that specific configurations are sub-par to others. You seem to be awfully stuck up on Devastators when more or less every unit in the game sits in the same boat where the default wargear is not the best loadout and upgrades are not simple sidegrades.
Apart from agreeing with the "Dislike the change"-faction that some configurations don't make sense when upgrades are free, you don't bring anything up to defend your argument.
alextroy wrote: However, other such attempts fall flat. There is never a reason to pick a Laspistol or Bolt Pistol over a Plasma Pistol. The same is true for a Chainsword over a Power Weapon. A bit more design work could have made these interesting choices also.
They took two steps when they could have taken one.
Pay x points for the squad, y points for each extra model, and z points to unlock the 'elite' wargear options. Secondary costs as needed for any key upgrades like elite sergeant wargear access or drones/servitors/etc.
Still cuts each unit down to a half dozen or less values rather than a full wargear list. Then again I don't understand the concept of simplifying one of the more straightforward aspects of the game while simultaneously giving every unit its own unique special rules, stacked on faction special rules, stacked on single use and command point wombo combos that are all buried behind a bucket of dice that you get to roll twice*
(*special results my apply to any arbitrary value rolled)
Basically if GW was going to remove options from points, they should have removed options from the rules too.
I dont mind for instance if a Leman Russ just has such and such an attack profile. It might take something from the game that you can't pick guns, but in a "rules first" view (as against models first) it could hold up.
But as people say, its stupid to dumb down the rules to avoid traps - then explicitly leave the traps there.
Unfortunately, the article yesterday lays out their design philosophy. Its impossible for there to be a 'better gun,' only guns with specific battlefield roles, therefor an imbalance can never happen.
Its a really hazy logic chain, and they did (as always) a poor job differentiating battlefield roles, so it can't work out in practice.
There are simply too many weapons that work on basic infantry and heavy infantry and still do chip damage to tanks. And AT weapons that work downward. And anti-aircraft weapons that still do the job at anti infantry or heavy infantry. The roles aren't discrete, so hand-waving balance via weapon roles is a non-starter. But that's what they decided to do regardless.
stonehorse wrote: Lack of sponson weapons also gives the Leman Russ a slimmer profile, allowing it to fit through tighter gaps, also gives it less that can be measured to and seen. So can have a very situational advantage.
I have never, ever before seen anyone argue that omitting sponsons on a Russ is useful for battlefield footprint and I have to wonder if you really believe that a minutely slimmer profile is just as valuable as a pair of plasma cannons.
I'm pretty okay with taking points off of 'basic gear' (vox, one special weapon per squad, etc) and making sidegrades roughly equivalent and free, but there are a bunch of cases where the option is a straight upgrade with absolutely no downsides and you're a chump for not taking it.
Why would I ever:
-Not take Venom Cannons and Barbed Stranglers on Tyranid Warriors
-Not take one of every weapon upgrade on Wracks
-Not take a plasma pistol on every Guard sergeant and officer who has the option
-Not take hunter-killer missiles on literally every vehicle in my Guard army
Even within the sidegrade options there are some that are clearly not equivalent. Nine times out of ten, a plasma cannon is more useful than a heavy bolter. Points were a useful way to balance this out and give some utility to the less effective or more niche options, and make you think twice about dumping a ton of points into a unit without making it any more durable. For all the claims of reduced lethality that GW has made, we're about to see what happens when there is no reason not to have the absolute best weapons on every unit in the game.
This is an egregious enough issue that it's killed most of my enthusiasm for 10th- I'm not going to expand my armies when I feel railroaded into giving new models all the bells and whistles, let alone with the risk that GW might say 'oops' and add points back, making those configurations so expensive as to be worthless.
I did like the old fluff distinction with regards to sponsons - sponsons were typically on the slow infantry support russes or on the fire support russes (like exterminators) while maneuver russes tended to omit them.
This meant that armored companies, who depended on tanks for maneuver and for fires, would often have more sponsonless tanks than sponsons, while siege regiments or infantry regiments with tanks in support would often include them.
Now? Eh. You can leave the sponsons off if you want. You could also just "counts as" invisible sponsons, too. WYSIWYG is dead.
Voss wrote: There are simply too many weapons that work on basic infantry and heavy infantry and still do chip damage to tanks. And AT weapons that work downward.
It is ironic that this kind of points system would have worked much better in earlier paper/scissors/stone iterations of the game where paying a flat cost and then picking your weapons on the day would have discouraged many of the skew lists.
Brewing is dead for me with 10th. I will stay with earlier edition(s) now.
Also hate the removal of force organization categories, removal of HQ wargear options, general game wide removal of meaningful choices in list design. The whole thing has been dumbed down to the point I have no interest in this new game.
Also for everyone who hated power rating this is exactly what 10th is pushing on us. Points are now equivalent to power rating.
Also for everyone who hated power rating this is exactly what 10th is pushing on us. Points are now equivalent to power rating.
Yah. They basically got rid of points, multiplied PLs x10, and then called it "newer, smarter points". They've pulled a complete BS maneuver and expected somehow that it wouldn't matter. Or it'd be met with praise?
There's something awfully dysfunctional, cynical, or just stupid behind it.
This! What is the point of having weapon options when only the best will be taken as they are free? What is the point of listing wargear as an option when it is free, and why would I not take it?
My first thought was that these army comp and points changes were an attempt at a cashgrab by appealing to normies. But the more I think about it, the less likely I think it is to work, because:
Does the dumbing down actually grow their customer base? I see the points changes and I think the only people that benefit are people with low IQ and children. Usually, people that aren't so smart don't make a ton of money, and so wouldn't have the extra income to throw at GW's expensive luxury products. And children are at the mercy of their parents anyways. Parents won't care about the dumbing down. In fact, as a parent, I'd be less inclined to give GW money because there's less of an incidental educational benefit with the new, stupid rules.
Additionally, with no points levers to pull, GW gets less money out of established and competitive gamers also. As has been pointed out, for basically every squad, there's an optimal build now. You spam it and get 3 of them, you're done. The rules are fixed and won't change with codexes. And GW can't do fine-grain adjustments to weapon points because that's out the window. So when CA rolls around, what can GW do to get you to buy more stuff? I guess they can swing balance back and forth at the squad level, but that seems less likely to work.
I can't remember where I saw it but the New Coke analogy is a good one for this edition. There's very little with the new rules to make existing players happy, and they're going all in for the new playerbase. But I don't think the execution was good enough to move the needle for bringing in new players, so I don't see how this succeeds. I could be wrong, GW has done well in spite of itself for decades... but this seems like a big mistake. For my sample size of n=1, I have canceled my Leviathan preorders and am pretty uninterested in playing the new edition. I have over 10k of Nids so I've obviously given GW plenty of money over the years, but my buying and playing days are over for the foreseeable future.
Gene St. Ealer wrote: Usually, people that aren't so smart don't make a ton of money
Sweet summer child...
Heh, I know I guess my serious response is that even with the decreased cognitive load of, uh, addition, there are still much more significant barriers of entry to the "unwashed masses" mass market that GW wants to break into. So I just don't see this bit of streamlining doing them any good.
It seems to be simply laziness, unless they have cut the 40k studio to the bone and there is only two or three persons writing all the rules. It's perfectly possible that is some demented order from middle management to "improve" the game. I have wondered sometimes whether they work under insane briefs from people that don't understand the product they are selling.
Insectum7 wrote: Or it's an excuse to sell more granular codexes later.
That will be interesting either way, they have to update the field manual anyway with each new codex to include the new units, it remains to be seen if they do general balance updates at the same time. And on what basis.
BertBert wrote: No, this increasing trend towards less granularity and fewer options under the guise of optimisation is something I vehemently disagree with.
Thing is fixed squad sizes and no options CAN work. Warmachine at its peak was like this and it was great because the rules had depth and there was lots of interactions and possibilities. Unfortunately 40k is NOT a deep game and GW don't seem interested in making a deep game. This isn't an issue either really because I would hesitate to call previous editions deep but they DID allow a great degree of customization and personalization of units (or what people refer to as Your Dudes). Unfortunatly 10th is also getting rid of Your Dudes. So now we're left with the worst of both worlds.
one thing is, a large part of the GW customer base does not play the game or just play 1-2 games per Edition
those people collect and paint and for them it does not matter if the better option is free or cost points, they just need an excuse to buy something and than build the loadout they like most.
and for those people we get that kind of points, because they buy an army, build and paint and as they like out of the box and than want to play that and therefore need a list that fits what they have and can be played against everyone else
(past edition there was the problem that those people did as GW told, had their boxes build with Powerlevel and found out that they cannot play because their collection was not a legal 2000 point list)
we don't know how many people actual play but given different surveys in the community (youtube, reddit, facebook) it is about 50% that played only a 1-2 games last edition or did not play at all
so those that want to have a working game are not the favoured customers by GW but those who just want to collect Space Marines (and the rules are written to fit their needs)
For a brief moment I had optimism that 10th would be a step in the right direction. To restart the core rules so shortly after 8th was at least them appearing to realize that there were fundamental flaws in the system that needed to be addressed. A lot of the initial changes generally appeared positive in my opinion but there was always that feeling that something was wrong, when they started the faction focuses I could already see that they hadn't learned a damn thing.
The moment I saw that points no longer matter I knew that I had no interest in anything 10th had to offer anymore.
Yes, we have the cards and points. But nothing from an actual Codex.
Any time we’ve had Get You By rules? Codecies have presented a more in-depth experience. And right now, whilst I’m happy to admit I’m wrong in due course, we’ve no real reason to believe 10th won’t follow suit.
Yes, we have the cards and points. But nothing from an actual Codex.
Any time we’ve had Get You By rules? Codecies have presented a more in-depth experience. And right now, whilst I’m happy to admit I’m wrong in due course, we’ve no real reason to believe 10th won’t follow suit.
It is emphatically *not* too early to tell whether the 10th approach to unit upgrades works. You can be okay with it, you can be on the fence about it, you can hate it... but the information is there now, codexes aren't changing that particular aspect.
"We don't have full rules yet. It's too early to tell!" *GW releases rules* "Well we don't have any army rules yet. It's too early to tell!" *GW releases Tyranids and Marines* "Well we don't have all the army rules yet. It's too early to tell!" *GW releases all the remaining army rules* "Well we don't have the points yet. It's too early to tell!" *GW releases all the points* "We we don't have the Codices yet. It's too early to tell!"
At what point do you get tired from carrying the goalposts so damned far?
"We don't have full rules yet. It's too early to tell!" *GW releases rules* "Well we don't have any army rules yet. It's too early to tell!" *GW releases Tyranids and Marines* "Well we don't have all the army rules yet. It's too early to tell!" *GW releases all the remaining army rules* "Well we don't have the points yet. It's too early to tell!" *GW releases all the points* "We we don't have the Codices yet. It's too early to tell!"
At what point do you get tired from carrying the goalposts so damned far?
Hopefully not too tired, as he's still got 'We don't have enough games with [x] Codex yet', 'We don't have all the Codices yet' and '[x] Codex was "designed with 11th in mind"' to get through.
I like the directon. Been saying sigmars point system is what 40k needs for a while among my play groups.
Grainular 1pt 2pt upgrades were acceptable back in 4th edition. But as the new editions rolled out the scale of the game kept creeping larger. I play many other wargames of the same size or so as 40k and they have all moved away from the grainular system. Leave the individual custom point microing to the small skirmish games imo
Tittliewinks22 wrote: Grainular 1pt 2pt upgrades were acceptable back in 4th edition.
This isn't the difference between a unit of Sigmarines taking Swords or Spears. What works in AoS doesn't neccessarily work with other games (and I think this is demonstrably true with the crap GW put out last Friday).
And we're not talking about 1 or 2 point upgrades. We're talking about the difference between a Marine with a Bolter and a Marine with a Lascannon, a whole squad with BP/Chainsword vs a whole squad with Plasma Pistols and Power Weapons.
Tittliewinks22 wrote: Grainular 1pt 2pt upgrades were acceptable back in 4th edition.
This isn't the difference between a unit of Sigmarines taking Swords or Spears. What works in AoS doesn't neccessarily work with other games (and I think this is demonstrably true with the crap GW put out last Friday).
And we're not talking about 1 or 2 point upgrades. We're talking about the difference between a Marine with a Bolter and a Marine with a Lascannon, a whole squad with BP/Chainsword vs a whole squad with Plasma Pistols and Power Weapons.
Honestly, GW has never really been good evaluating points as it is. And the mathhammer folks have been too good at squeezing every ounce out point disparities as it is. This rules and balance thing isn't GW's main gig, they just want you to buy (lots) of their cool models.
Now the pressure is on not to optimize too hard. If you do with the current point scale, you're going to run out of people who want to play against you mighty quick. It's an insidious but ingenious way to force the community to not take the game too seriously.
(Though GW is definitely fighting an uphill battle on this. The community has trained itself against this for so many years)
Honestly, GW has never really been good evaluating points as it is. And the mathhammer folks have been too good at squeezing every ounce out point disparities as it is. This rules and balance thing isn't GW's main gig, they just want you to buy (lots) of their cool models.
Now the pressure is on not to optimize too hard. If you do with the current point scale, you're going to run out of people who want to play against you mighty quick. It's an insidious but ingenious way to force the community to not take the game too seriously.
(Though GW is definitely fighting an uphill battle on this. The community has trained itself against this for so many years)
I see where you are coming from but I think you are optimistic in your outcome. People are not just going to "not want to play you" they are just going to give up on playing more likely. I remember in 5th building a Tyranid list to fight a newer player, lots of Warriors and Gaunts but not much in the realm of monsters. I knew it wasn't a great list but it was to give him a chance to kill a whole lot of stuff. The new player didn't show that day and I had a guard player offer to play me instead; knowing this guard player I said sure on the condition that he didn't bring a bunch of battle cannons. He got mad and started going off about me asking him not to play guard the way they are meant to be played and how I should just play with no monsters then (My list had like...2 Carnifexs I think.) I gave in, we played one turn where his battle cannons insta-deathed most of my army. The guard player was apologetic as they realized that I was trying to make the game actually playable but at that point I had no desire to play that night.
I think that most people don't go into a game to break it, they go in to play what they think is fun like they are supposed to according to GW, the problem is that there is such a huge powerful differential in armies that we can already see that just playing for fun is going to be one sided. People are not going to want to play if they know the outcome of the battle before it starts, it is why invisible death stars of 7th pretty much killed the game.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I did like the old fluff distinction with regards to sponsons - sponsons were typically on the slow infantry support russes or on the fire support russes (like exterminators) while maneuver russes tended to omit them.
This meant that armored companies, who depended on tanks for maneuver and for fires, would often have more sponsonless tanks than sponsons, while siege regiments or infantry regiments with tanks in support would often include them.
Now? Eh. You can leave the sponsons off if you want. You could also just "counts as" invisible sponsons, too. WYSIWYG is dead.
I like the idea of sponson free Russ's getting more speed/boosts/whatever.
Give them an "invisible" gear like Supercharged Engines that does something. +4" move, a 5++ "jink save", what have you... that then gets traded for the now visible sponsons.
So you take the current Russ:
M10, T11, W13 etc. Less guns and a 5++.
Add Sponsons and it turns into
M6, T12, W14, more guns.
Honestly, GW has never really been good evaluating points as it is. And the mathhammer folks have been too good at squeezing every ounce out point disparities as it is. This rules and balance thing isn't GW's main gig, they just want you to buy (lots) of their cool models.
Now the pressure is on not to optimize too hard. If you do with the current point scale, you're going to run out of people who want to play against you mighty quick. It's an insidious but ingenious way to force the community to not take the game too seriously.
(Though GW is definitely fighting an uphill battle on this. The community has trained itself against this for so many years)
What's incredibly bang-head-on-wall-inducing about this post is that Power Level already existed for those that didn't care about points. You already had a solution.
But no, building lists and optimising wargear and fine-tuning with little choices is apparently "not the right kind of fun" (even though it provides a huge amount of solo/asynchronous engagement for many of us), and GW will not provide for this wrong kind of fun.
And oh yeah, hey this is supposed to be casual even though there are huge tournaments which generate a lot of buzz around the product. Sure.
Love it! Always liked PL better than points too, happy everyone is forced to using PL now. If other players get existential crisis when they think about either "cheesing the list to 11" or "nerfing their list on purpose by not taking the best upgardes", well, that is sad, but I don't make the rules. I pick the best looking options for my models, roll dice like always, win or lose
But please spare us with the "this dumbing down of the details is for idiots". It's for players who dont want 40K to be an excercise in mental gymnastics, this does not imply anything else about their intelligence, just about their preference for "hi brow/low brow" entertainment. All people, from the smartest to the dumbest, have a right to enjoy whatever brow they feel like at the moment
tauist wrote: Love it! Always liked PL better than points too, happy everyone is forced to using PL now. If other players get existential crisis when they think about either "cheesing the list to 11" or "nerfing their list on purpose by not taking the best upgardes", well, that is sad, but I don't make the rules. I pick the best looking options for my models, roll dice like always, win or lose
Sooooo.....you "like it' that everyone is forced into playing with your preferred system? Instead of offering both systems, as was offered in 8th/9th? Really like that "my side wins" feeling, don't ya?
tauist wrote: Love it! Always liked PL better than points too, happy everyone is forced to using PL now. If other players get existential crisis when they think about either "cheesing the list to 11" or "nerfing their list on purpose by not taking the best upgardes", well, that is sad, but I don't make the rules. I pick the best looking options for my models, roll dice like always, win or lose
Sooooo.....you "like it' that everyone is forced into playing with your preferred system? Instead of offering both systems, as was offered in 8th/9th? Really like that "my side wins" feeling, don't ya?
Ahh, I believe I already had this discussion with another regular user on here? I like to write polarizing, baity snipe replies to hot topics, but rarely feel arsed enough to reply or discuss my opinions further. That's all you get from me this time. I have spoken.
Honestly, GW has never really been good evaluating points as it is. And the mathhammer folks have been too good at squeezing every ounce out point disparities as it is. This rules and balance thing isn't GW's main gig, they just want you to buy (lots) of their cool models.
Now the pressure is on not to optimize too hard. If you do with the current point scale, you're going to run out of people who want to play against you mighty quick. It's an insidious but ingenious way to force the community to not take the game too seriously.
Huh? Isn't it the other way around now?
You might not have picked the best option (e.g. a flamer), but at least you didn't pay as much points for it? Now you have a worse loadout and not even get compensated for it.
The new system is completely stupid and greedy, as it punishes people who built things before in the only legal way to do it, only for them to change it and make those models useless (e.g. jetbikes used to be only one heavy weapon / 3 instead of the entire unit). Now it’s made utterly moronic to not upgrade them in effect obsoleting old models.
tauist wrote: Love it! Always liked PL better than points too, happy everyone is forced to using PL now. If other players get existential crisis when they think about either "cheesing the list to 11" or "nerfing their list on purpose by not taking the best upgardes", well, that is sad, but I don't make the rules. I pick the best looking options for my models, roll dice like always, win or lose
But please spare us with the "this dumbing down of the details is for idiots". It's for players who dont want 40K to be an excercise in mental gymnastics, this does not imply anything else about their intelligence, just about their preference for "hi brow/low brow" entertainment. All people, from the smartest to the dumbest, have a right to enjoy whatever brow they feel like at the moment
You realise that the change is not better for your kind of playstyle, right? Unless "I pick the best looking model" somehow always correlated to "the optimal loadout", you will still be at a (bigger?) disadvantage now, as you pay the same points as someone who does take the best stuff.
I'm torn what to feel about the "don't say it is getting dumbed down for idiots" part if you equate adding some small numbers together as an "excercise in mental gymnastics".
tauist wrote: Love it! Always liked PL better than points too, happy everyone is forced to using PL now. If other players get existential crisis when they think about either "cheesing the list to 11" or "nerfing their list on purpose by not taking the best upgardes", well, that is sad, but I don't make the rules. I pick the best looking options for my models, roll dice like always, win or lose
Sooooo.....you "like it' that everyone is forced into playing with your preferred system? Instead of offering both systems, as was offered in 8th/9th? Really like that "my side wins" feeling, don't ya?
Ahh, I believe I already had this discussion with another regular user on here? I like to write polarizing, baity snipe replies to hot topics, but rarely feel arsed enough to reply or discuss my opinions further. That's all you get from me this time. I have spoken.
So, you'll start the fire, but you yourself when the firefight comes. Noted.
I don't understand the sentiment that I have seen that this somehow improves peoples' options to take whatever they want on their models. To me it seems to do the opposite.
There are many options now that are just statistically worse to take. I'm citing it a lot, but Guard officers are objectively wrong to take any pistol that isnt a plasma pistol. Your fluffy bolt pistol commissars are just wrong now, even if that is the only weapon even in the latest kit.
As to the argument that a single pistol is not important: it is simply a microcosm of the problem over the whole range. A leman russ tank is pointed as if it has all the most powerful guns. This is the main reason that the new Russ costs are so high. If they were not pointed to come with multimeltas, hunterkillers, and stubbers, you may have been able to knock 20-30 points off of a bolter armed russ.
I'm not a fan as it actually reduces player freedom to build models how they want, as it is easy to make objectively wrong choices.
I think people are meaning they can build what they like on their models, but pick the most optimal set of choices from the rules for their army list, under the belief that WYSIWYG no longer matters.
Dysartes wrote: I think people are meaning they can build what they like on their models, but pick the most optimal set of choices from the rules for their army list, under the belief that WYSIWYG no longer matters.
That seems a bit like the system is so messed up, we are going to have to start ignoring basic 40k principles to cope with the changes.
Yea it's pretty bad to me that there's going to be one optimal build for each datasheet and everything else is a waste of money, points and hobby time.
It's okayish in AoS where most of the boxes were designed with the system in mind and it's usually a choice of 2 marginally different weapons and 1 in 5 dudes having a marginally better weapon. It's not okayish if you can festoon your tank with 3 extra free lascannons and if you do anything else you're an imbecile.
lord_blackfang wrote: Yea it's pretty bad to me that there's going to be one optimal build for each datasheet and everything else is a waste of money, points and hobby time.
It's okayish in AoS where most of the boxes were designed with the system in mind and it's usually a choice of 2 marginally different weapons and 1 in 5 dudes having a marginally better weapon. It's not okayish if you can festoon your tank with 3 extra free lascannons and if you do anything else you're an imbecile.
I'm sure it'll be better by 12th edition once GW retires old legacy kits and we're stuck with kits with minimal options anyway
Trickstick wrote: I don't understand the sentiment that I have seen that this somehow improves peoples' options to take whatever they want on their models. To me it seems to do the opposite.
as I wrote before, this is about the collectors
those that use Codices as guideline on "what to collect" buy each box once and assembly what they think looks cool
and Power Levels and units options tied to box content only (as who on their right mind would collect 2 of the same boxes) make it much easier for those to actually play with that collection and give them more options
because someone using the weapons they liked the look of does not run into problems with list building and always has their 2k army
the gamers, that make an army list first and than buy the stuff for that and build it by having several of the same and combine weapons from different boxes is not the target group for GW and therefore the rules are not written to fit their needs
I'm a collector though, but I still feel that I'm being railroaded into building my models a certain way. My cool urban combat tanks, which have no sponsons for moving down narrow streets, are punished by the rules. I'm being told that the way I have built things is objectively wrong.
I don't see how this system is anything but worse for someone who build their models without worrying about points costs. How is it an improvement? They are just paying more for not taking the mathematically optimal loadouts.
This is basically the same problem as the unit numbers change. A russ without sponsons is like paying for 10 models and using 7.
but you assume that the collectors know the mathematical best and wort option
or that those even have the rules or read that part of the Codex
there are people that look on the pic of an SM company, buy it, paint it, play 1 game and continue with the other army in the 2 player set
there are people who just don't care because they never really play or care about the best options in game
and this is also a reason why they are attracted to the GW because anyone else has their rules written as game first while for GW this is the least important part
also those people will explain to you that such things don't matter because 40k is all about the background and the fun and only WAAC & TFG care about mathematical best options
(a reason why 9th was not for me, as I am a collector but a gamer as well and this is not a game I like to play although I would like to collect an army)
kodos wrote: also those people will explain to you that such things don't matter because 40k is all about the background and the fun and only WAAC & TFG care about mathematical best options
(a reason why 9th was not for me, as I am a collector but a gamer as well and this is not a game I like to play although I would like to collect an army)
Oh boyo, 10th edition will be hell for you... Because now WAAC & TFG don't have to churn out those best options, they get 'em for free. And if you don't exploit the shameless min/maxing then the game puts you at a disadvantage due to the min/maxing being baked into your points costs. So not only do you have to suffer the super-easy min/maxing but literally get punished for not doing it yourself.
kodos wrote: but you assume that the collectors know the mathematical best and wort option
or that those even have the rules or read that part of the Codex
there are people that look on the pic of an SM company, buy it, paint it, play 1 game and continue with the other army in the 2 player set
there are people who just don't care because they never really play or care about the best options in game
and this is also a reason why they are attracted to the GW because anyone else has their rules written as game first while for GW this is the least important part
also those people will explain to you that such things don't matter because 40k is all about the background and the fun and only WAAC & TFG care about mathematical best options
(a reason why 9th was not for me, as I am a collector but a gamer as well and this is not a game I like to play although I would like to collect an army)
"The new rules are better for people who don't use the rules" is a bit of a dud argument
Dysartes wrote: I think people are meaning they can build what they like on their models, but pick the most optimal set of choices from the rules for their army list, under the belief that WYSIWYG no longer matters.
Or that before generally upgrades were best to kept to minimum. Boys before toy. You were penaisea hard by taking upgrades.
Optimal build is always so if you want optimised list you have 1 build and that's it.
kodos wrote: also those people will explain to you that such things don't matter because 40k is all about the background and the fun and only WAAC & TFG care about mathematical best options
(a reason why 9th was not for me, as I am a collector but a gamer as well and this is not a game I like to play although I would like to collect an army)
Oh boyo, 10th edition will be hell for you... Because now WAAC & TFG don't have to churn out those best options, they get 'em for free. And if you don't exploit the shameless min/maxing then the game puts you at a disadvantage due to the min/maxing being baked into your points costs. So not only do you have to suffer the super-easy min/maxing but literally get punished for not doing it yourself.
Well luckily i don't play vs that kind of people and get to laugh them paying for all those optimals. And chucke knowing the optimal changes.
And no count as won't go. Want that 10 dc fist&inferno pistol? Models have to have them
lord_blackfang wrote: "The new rules are better for people who don't use the rules" is a bit of a dud argument
and the one I haven seen most often by now regarding 10th and why it is already better than anything before
because it is all about playing the game you love and not care about the rules (but dare to suggest not using the official rules as this would kill all the fun)
AtoMaki wrote: Oh boyo, 10th edition will be hell for you... Because now WAAC & TFG don't have to churn out those best options, they get 'em for free. And if you don't exploit the shameless min/maxing then the game puts you at a disadvantage due to the min/maxing being baked into your points costs. So not only do you have to suffer the super-easy min/maxing but literally get punished for not doing it yourself.
well, I am already out and maybe try again when Codex SW hits
and that some fanboys suggested that my collection is not unplayable because I can run them as Primaris instead (just use your Wulfen as Bladguard and throw the Wolfscouts away and buy Reivers) showed me that it is not worth even trying to get into for now
Dysartes wrote: I'm not arguing with you, just explaining what I think they're trying to express.
Oh I understand, I wasn't intending to argue.
Plus, I think people were already fudging WYSIWYG a little especially on smaller bits like pistols. Heck I think they're even starting to build the models with this sort of thing in mind - Most BGV are defaul/posed with the sword out and the pistol holstered.
Mixed I guess, but largely leaning towards "hate it".
I think built in "upgrades" when you're actively seeking to encourage fluff-consistent builds (e.g. special and heavy weapon in Tactical Squads), or are actively making an effort to create some sort of parity beyond alternatives (give people a reason to take melta/plasma/flamer depending on what you want the unit to do) is largely fine.
But then when there's "optional" stuff which is VERY CLEARLY an absolute no brainer, because it's and undeniable quantitative improvement (e.g. a unit of 7 Plague Marines is 43% more expensive per model than if you've taken 5 or 10; a Leman Russ doesn't always have sponsons but there's literally no downside to taking them cos you're getting free extra heavy weapons) then I think it's actively contributing to a situation where people are penalised for trying to create fun, interesting or fluffy units/armies outside of some extremely narrow parameters.
I think the way the last Guard book did it was about right tbh – heavy/special weapons costs baked into the units, but then undeniable upgrades like plasma pistols or sponsons were an additional cost.
lord_blackfang wrote: Yea it's pretty bad to me that there's going to be one optimal build for each datasheet and everything else is a waste of money, points and hobby time.
It's okayish in AoS where most of the boxes were designed with the system in mind and it's usually a choice of 2 marginally different weapons and 1 in 5 dudes having a marginally better weapon. It's not okayish if you can festoon your tank with 3 extra free lascannons and if you do anything else you're an imbecile.
I'm sure it'll be better by 12th edition once GW retires old legacy kits and we're stuck with kits with minimal options anyway
Is this a serious post?
It'll be better when they've removed unit options and upgrades from the game?
no, but GW makes rules to fit the most recent kits and does not care about old stuff or veteran players using the old stuff instead of buying the shiny new one
which is a reason why AoS works better than 40k, there are no real legacy items any more, just models that are designed with AoS in mind while over 2 editions those that did not fit were removed
so GW should finally remove the old Marines from 40k, this would not only cut the datasheets and remove bloat but also removes problems that the kits don't fit the rules
Insectum7 wrote: It'll be better when they've removed unit options and upgrades from the game?
It's the endgame.
Warcry is what GW wants their games to be: Set units, set models, even set terrain set ups. If they'd've been able to get away with that with Necromunda, they would have.
Insectum7 wrote: It'll be better when they've removed unit options and upgrades from the game?
It's the endgame.
Warcry is what GW wants their games to be: Set units, set models, even set terrain set ups. If they'd've been able to get away with that with Necromunda, they would have.
Come to Horus Heresy, we have 20 pages of guns each with a points cost!
Insectum7 wrote: It'll be better when they've removed unit options and upgrades from the game?
It's the endgame.
Warcry is what GW wants their games to be: Set units, set models, even set terrain set ups. If they'd've been able to get away with that with Necromunda, they would have.
Come to Horus Heresy, we have 20 pages of guns each with a points cost!
And ten pages of them are even Bolters, just like God the Emperor intended.
Insectum7 wrote: It'll be better when they've removed unit options and upgrades from the game?
It's the endgame.
Warcry is what GW wants their games to be: Set units, set models, even set terrain set ups. If they'd've been able to get away with that with Necromunda, they would have.
Come to Horus Heresy, we have 20 pages of guns each with a points cost!
Alas, HH does not currently have rules for the armies I play.
Insectum7 wrote: It'll be better when they've removed unit options and upgrades from the game?
It's the endgame.
Warcry is what GW wants their games to be: Set units, set models, even set terrain set ups. If they'd've been able to get away with that with Necromunda, they would have.
Come to Horus Heresy, we have 20 pages of guns each with a points cost!
Alas, HH does not currently have rules for the armies I play.
well, panoptica exists, and then there's the fact that you could run an eldar codex from the past editions.
Insectum7 wrote: It'll be better when they've removed unit options and upgrades from the game?
It's the endgame.
Warcry is what GW wants their games to be: Set units, set models, even set terrain set ups. If they'd've been able to get away with that with Necromunda, they would have.
Come to Horus Heresy, we have 20 pages of guns each with a points cost!
Alas, HH does not currently have rules for the armies I play.
well, panoptica exists, and then there's the fact that you could run an eldar codex from the past editions.
HH 2.0 is different enough that you'd have to make adjustments.
It'd be a good BASE, but you cannot play it as-is.
Insectum7 wrote: It'll be better when they've removed unit options and upgrades from the game?
It's the endgame.
Warcry is what GW wants their games to be: Set units, set models, even set terrain set ups. If they'd've been able to get away with that with Necromunda, they would have.
Come to Horus Heresy, we have 20 pages of guns each with a points cost!
Alas, HH does not currently have rules for the armies I play.
well, panoptica exists, and then there's the fact that you could run an eldar codex from the past editions.
HH 2.0 is different enough that you'd have to make adjustments.
It'd be a good BASE, but you cannot play it as-is.
Movement stat and unit type. And all relevant unit types for eldar exist to my knowledge. after that some deine tuning of points and psy and you'd be pretty golden afaik.
I will say the problem is extremely frustrating for Baneblades.
"Rip your models apart (or saw through old, ancient, invaluable resin) or else you're missing out on two twin heavy bolters and two lascannons" is not my exciting idea of fun.
kodos wrote: but you assume that the collectors know the mathematical best and wort option
No, they don't. That's literally the problem. The people who know the game inside and out don't need accurate points values; they can look at two armies and have a decent idea of how they stack up and make adjustments accordingly.
It's the people who don't extensively analyze stats who benefit the most from decent, representative wargear points costs; a simple acknowledgment that a tank with plasma cannon sponsons is more effective on the table than one without, or that a command squad built out as a lieutenant and four riflemen is less useful than one with every specialist that comes in the kit.
A casual collector who likes assembling their models with all the bells and whistles shouldn't have a tangible and significant advantage over a casual collector who takes a more modest approach, but that's exactly what we're getting.
HH2.0 has enough changes to USRs and profiles that it wouldn't work.
You could use the old codex as a baseline, but you would need to basically completely redesign it.
As for the topic of the thread, I dislike it but with caveats. I actually like set unit sizes, but upgrades should have point costs. There are a few cases in which weapons are clearly side grades like the termagant profile in which case everything being free makes sense. But free venom cannons on warriors does not make sense.
Frankly, I don't think whether WYSIWYG is a thing or isn't is particularly material to the discussion, because even if you take the approach that every unit is assumed to have all the upgrades regardless of what's actually modeled, the problem is remembering which random model(s) in a squad have the relevant upgrades- and then repeat across your entire army.
Frankly, I don't think whether WYSIWYG is a thing or isn't is particularly material to the discussion, because even if you take the approach that every unit is assumed to have all the upgrades regardless of what's actually modeled, the problem is remembering which random model(s) in a squad have the relevant upgrades- and then repeat across your entire army.
True, though I really don't want to cut open forge world Baneblades from 3rd/4th (or armorcast from before that) just to add a pair of sponsons... (Nor am I terribly excited about just taking them on either).
Visual clarity is such an important thing in 40k, but that seems to be eroding too, and it's not a good direction.
For Marines there are three different units with Twin Lascannons, visually, and they're all different stat-wise. Razorback, Predator Annihilator and Land Raider. Balance-wise it can be useful to tweak them independently. But for visual communication it's not good, and for reducing bloat it's also not good. Those were all the same weapon system for decades.
Arguably the differentiation is also partly due to not paying for upgrades too. The Lascannon on the Razorback is an upgrade over the Heavy Bolters, while the Land Raider and Annihilator carry them stock.
kodos wrote: but you assume that the collectors know the mathematical best and wort option
No, they don't. That's literally the problem. The people who know the game inside and out don't need accurate points values; they can look at two armies and have a decent idea of how they stack up and make adjustments accordingly.
It's the people who don't extensively analyze stats who benefit the most from decent, representative wargear points costs; a simple acknowledgment that a tank with plasma cannon sponsons is more effective on the table than one without, or that a command squad built out as a lieutenant and four riflemen is less useful than one with every specialist that comes in the kit.
A casual collector who likes assembling their models with all the bells and whistles shouldn't have a tangible and significant advantage over a casual collector who takes a more modest approach, but that's exactly what we're getting.
exactly
which is a reason why I cannot get behind that people still think that such rules have any benefit for the casual player
it is more like that it benefits the competitive player as they have a clear advantage over those who don't do the math
Canadian 5th wrote: I'm all for the change. It makes list building easy and lets you actually use the toys your kit comes with instead of banishing them to the bits box.
you still cannot add more heavy weapons, so you just throw different bits into the box
if you like the new system, this is fine, but the reason makes not much sense
Insectum7 wrote: Visual clarity is such an important thing in 40k, but that seems to be eroding too, and it's not a good direction.
I was wondering could you provide some insight on why you think it's not a good direction?
Personally it doens't bother me much, but I spent a long time away from 40k so the weapons are less ingrained and it doesn't bother me as much.
It reduces the overall number of weapons and standardises visual language, basically. Something that looks like a Twin Lascannon behaves like a twin Lascannon, and if you know what a Lascannon does, you know what a Twin Lascannon does. But instead there are three different Twin-Lascannon-looking things, and they all do something slightly different. It's just less visual clarity on the tabletop.
Being able to see a model and know what it does is nice. It's one of the reasons Stratagems and bespoke special rules cause a lot of friction too. These are things that are essentially invisible to the opposing player, but can be extremely potent.
The weapon thing isn't as bad as Strats, but it's in the same category of "invisible factors".
EDIT:
Speaking of invisible differences, the Land Raiders are different speeds. The classic Lascannon loadout has a move of 10", while the Crusader and Redeemer have a move of 12". Huh.
EDIT:
Speaking of invisible differences, the Land Raiders are different speeds. The classic Lascannon loadout has a move of 10", while the Crusader and Redeemer have a move of 12". Huh.
They really must have split up the designers and handed them an alphabetical list with breakpoints between the land raiders and other units.... And then banished each of the designers in a room on a diffrent floor and with strict prohibition to speak to one another.
How else do you reach something like this. And it isn't the only exemple, the Eldar have something similar with fireprisms and another unit.
Insectum7 wrote: Visual clarity is such an important thing in 40k, but that seems to be eroding too, and it's not a good direction.
I was wondering could you provide some insight on why you think it's not a good direction?
Personally it doens't bother me much, but I spent a long time away from 40k so the weapons are less ingrained and it doesn't bother me as much.
It reduces the overall number of weapons and standardises visual language, basically. Something that looks like a Twin Lascannon behaves like a twin Lascannon, and if you know what a Lascannon does, you know what a Twin Lascannon does. But instead there are three different Twin-Lascannon-looking things, and they all do something slightly different. It's just less visual clarity on the tabletop.
Being able to see a model and know what it does is nice. It's one of the reasons Stratagems and bespoke special rules cause a lot of friction too. These are things that are essentially invisible to the opposing player, but can be extremely potent.
The weapon thing isn't as bad as Strats, but it's in the same category of "invisible factors".
EDIT:
Speaking of invisible differences, the Land Raiders are different speeds. The classic Lascannon loadout has a move of 10", while the Crusader and Redeemer have a move of 12". Huh.
To be fair, that's a difference that can actually be justified because the lascannons are much heavier than the other options (also internally) so having lighter weapons systems makes for a faster tank. Things like that however hugely benefit from being written out and not just being hidden on a datasheet because, well, people will just not see it that easily and assume it's all the same.
Insectum7 wrote: It reduces the overall number of weapons and standardises visual language, basically. Something that looks like a Twin Lascannon behaves like a twin Lascannon, and if you know what a Lascannon does, you know what a Twin Lascannon does. But instead there are three different Twin-Lascannon-looking things, and they all do something slightly different. It's just less visual clarity on the tabletop.
This was my problem with the 9th Tyranid Codex - as much as I love that book - in that it gave us 14 different versions of Scything Talons for no good reason. Worse, it was massively inconsistent about it, so your Carnifex had "Carnifex Scything Talons", and your Screamer Killer had "Screamer Killer Scything Talons" and your Thornback had... "Carnifex Scything Talons", because of course it fething did! And it wasn't the only example of this.
I'd also say it was pretty obvious there was a good chance this was going to be what 10th options looked like with that final points update.
I mostly like the "free upgrades" - especially when they're rather obviously side-grades instead. They have a number of issues to fix to get there though - even more so than a character pistol that will have next to no impact on 999 out of 1000 games. I'm talking about the Unit level choices - the Exorcist main "gun" - Flamestorm vs Boltstorm Aggressors (which has been imbalanced for a while now) - and so on.
Insectum7 wrote: It reduces the overall number of weapons and standardises visual language, basically. Something that looks like a Twin Lascannon behaves like a twin Lascannon, and if you know what a Lascannon does, you know what a Twin Lascannon does. But instead there are three different Twin-Lascannon-looking things, and they all do something slightly different. It's just less visual clarity on the tabletop.
This was my problem with the 9th Tyranid Codex - as much as I love that book - in that it gave us 14 different versions of Scything Talons for no good reason. Worse, it was massively inconsistent about it, so your Carnifex had "Carnifex Scything Talons", and your Screamer Killer had "Screamer Killer Scything Talons" and your Thornback had... "Carnifex Scything Talons", because of course it fething did! And it wasn't the only example of this.
If they were all identical profiles you have a point, cba to go check if they were though. They need to be different weapons otherwise, but if they want oen to have a smash/sweep and not the other models, or different AP or one have rerolls and one not, only way to do that: different weapons. Otherwise as usual you'd end up with all monster level nids having the exact same AP/damage and only the models S/A profile to separate their ability.
10 Pathfinders with pulse carbines costs 120 points. 10 pathfinders with 7 pulse rifles, 3 rail rifles, a semi-auto grenade launcher, a recon drone, grav drone, or a pulse accelerator drone, and 2 shield/gun drones costs... 120 points. And no, the loss of the pulse carbines doesn't reduce the effectiveness of the pathfinders in their job as an observer unit.
1 Broadside with a heavy rail rifle costs 110 points. It has 2 railgun shots. 1 Broadside with a heavy rail rifle, twin plasma rifle/twin smart missile, weapon support system and 2 shield drones costs 110 points. It has 2 railgun shots, the plasma rifle or SMS shots, ignores any or all hit modifiers to ranged attacks and has +2 wounds.
3 Crisis suits with 1 Burst Cannon each costs a total of 195 points. 3 Crisis suits with 3 burst cannons, Shield gen or weapon support system, and 2 shield drones each costs 195 points. It's only 3x the firepower and a 50% increase in the total wounds (and even more effective wounds in practice if shield generators and saving vs AP-2 or better) of the unit!
1 Hammerhead with Railgun and 2 twin pulse carbines costs 145. 1 Hammerhead with Railgun, 2 accelerator burst cannons or twin SMS (which are better than the pulse carbines in every metric), and 2 seeker missiles costs 145.
So, which of those is the "correct" loadout for the points cost of the unit, where it is supposedly balanced against other equivalently costed units in a similar role and I am not being TFG by taking the piss with all the free wargear that I can take?
As a Guard player I hate it. I’ve been playing with no sponsons since 3rd edition. Now I’m forced to take every single upgrade or be uncompetitive.
Same with infantry. I hated it in 9th and I hate it now. What’s the point of taking a sniper rifle or a laspistol in an infantry squad when plasma is free? Why take chainswords when I can take powerswords.
Frankly, I don't think whether WYSIWYG is a thing or isn't is particularly material to the discussion, because even if you take the approach that every unit is assumed to have all the upgrades regardless of what's actually modeled, the problem is remembering which random model(s) in a squad have the relevant upgrades- and then repeat across your entire army.
True, though I really don't want to cut open forge world Baneblades from 3rd/4th (or armorcast from before that) just to add a pair of sponsons... (Nor am I terribly excited about just taking them on either).
Ah, but that's a buying modelling opportunity, you see. Just hitch a tenth-cart™ full of sponsons to your baneblade, you can even remove it again once they come to their senses and add points for options that are straight-up additions
Dudeface wrote: If they were all identical profiles you have a point
Being identical isn't required. They were all Scything Talons, but just one different version after another, and then some that were the same between units and others that weren't.
previous versions had the issue of units pay for weapons, sometimes, where a weapon was only on one model it often had a zero point cost and the cost was in the unit.
which worked, until it didn't - e.g. Ork Lootas, where they all pay for the guns, including the mek, who doesn't have one, but instead has to pay for something else
A Town Called Malus wrote: 10 Pathfinders with pulse carbines costs 120 points.
10 pathfinders with 7 pulse rifles, 3 rail rifles, a semi-auto grenade launcher, a recon drone, grav drone, or a pulse accelerator drone, and 2 shield/gun drones costs... 120 points. And no, the loss of the pulse carbines doesn't reduce the effectiveness of the pathfinders in their job as an observer unit.
1 Broadside with a heavy rail rifle costs 110 points. It has 2 railgun shots.
1 Broadside with a heavy rail rifle, twin plasma rifle/twin smart missile, weapon support system and 2 shield drones costs 110 points. It has 2 railgun shots, the plasma rifle or SMS shots, ignores any or all hit modifiers to ranged attacks and has +2 wounds.
3 Crisis suits with 1 Burst Cannon each costs a total of 195 points.
3 Crisis suits with 3 burst cannons, Shield gen or weapon support system, and 2 shield drones each costs 195 points. It's only 3x the firepower and a 50% increase in the total wounds (and even more effective wounds in practice if shield generators and saving vs AP-2 or better) of the unit!
1 Hammerhead with Railgun and 2 twin pulse carbines costs 145.
1 Hammerhead with Railgun, 2 accelerator burst cannons or twin SMS (which are better than the pulse carbines in every metric), and 2 seeker missiles costs 145.
So, which of those is the "correct" loadout for the points cost of the unit, where it is supposedly balanced against other equivalently costed units in a similar role and I am not being TFG by taking the piss with all the free wargear that I can take?
Gee, I don't think the system works.
No, clearly you are wrong and anti fun if you don't think this system will work. Just don't be a WAAC /S
FWIW, i have an inkling that in the inevitable 11th edition we will see completly fixed loadouts to avoid above. Or a complete return to the older system, because GW gonna GW.
GW could have made a Datacard for each loadout and than make it cost different points
but maybe than Xenos would had more units than Marines and this was not allowed
in a game were Marines have a Datacard for the very same unit but with different weapons, not doing the same for all factions is just lazy so I guess we will see this things when the Codex hits
like Marines have it because their Codex is done and it was not seen as necessary to do the same for those armies further away
to add to the problem, we have seen in 7th how free upgrades works out for GW when at one step not only weapon options are free but Transporters as well
No, clearly you are wrong and anti fun if you don't think this system will work. Just don't be a WAAC /S.
to add the relevant quote:
stonehorse wrote: Yes points where always badly handled, making weapon options different in how they operate with the points baked into the unit is a much better way to do it.
It also means the game is more about fun and not micro adjustments to squeeze out the most optimal peak performance from every single point... you know, the tournament mindset that has been making the game a bit dull.
This is a return to fun, and for people to be able to build their models how they like without having to worry about whether that configuration would mean the unit/model puts their force over the points limit.
kodos wrote: GW could have made a Datacard for each loadout and than make it cost different points
A while back I calculated how many possible different gun combinations there were for crisis suits from just the bits available in the Crisis Suit box, so ignoring giving them CIBs or Frags from the commander kit. There were 35 unique loadouts just from their own box.
If you want to test the maths yourself, you get 3 of each weapon in the kit (plasma rifles, fusion blasters, burst cannons, missile pods, flamers). Each Crisis suit can have 3 weapons in any combination (3 of a kind, 2 same 1 different, all 3 different).
kodos wrote: they don't need to make each possible combiantion, but just 3 classic loadouts and it would have been much better than this
Define classic loadout. These units were never like Space Marines where had your bolter boys and a couple specials. They have always, since their very first iteration, been designed around true versatility and customisability. You get the blank crisis suit and put what guns and support systems you want on it. That design space has not changed at all since 3rd edition, nor should it.
Back in 3rd and 4th you had missile pod and plasma rifle or plasma rifle and fusion blaster as the common picks, due to restrictions on taking multiple of the same gun and needing the 3rd hardpoint for a multi-tracker to enable shooting with multiple weapons. But from 6th onwards (Tau didn't get a codex in 5th) it opened up and we started with the triple gun suits, or 2/1 as we no longer needed the hard point to shoot with multiple weapons. So, out of the 7 editions that Tau have existed as an army, they have had the most lax suit equipment rules in 4 of them. Out of their codices, 5 out of 7 have followed that lax equipment restriction.
kodos wrote: they don't need to make each possible combiantion, but just 3 classic loadouts and it would have been much better than this
Define classic loadout.
I think it is the Plasma+Missile (Sunknife?), Fusion+Flamer (Sunforge?), Burst+Plasma (Brightwind?), and 2xMissile (Deathwind?). I might remember the names wrong, but IIRC they are sun-sun-wind-wind.
kodos wrote: they don't need to make each possible combiantion, but just 3 classic loadouts and it would have been much better than this
Define classic loadout.
I think it is the Plasma+Missile (Sunknife?), Fusion+Flamer (Sunforge?), Burst+Plasma (Brightwind?), and 2xMissile (Deathwind?). I might remember the names wrong, but IIRC they are sun-sun-wind-wind.
Plasma and Missile was Fireknife.
Those loadouts only existed from 3rd until the Tau codex of 6th removed the restrictions on taking multiple of the same gun, allowed to shoot with multiple guns without needing a support system to do so, and allowed shooting with up to 3 guns.
So, the vast, vast number of Tau players likely never played with those suit loadouts as they were only the go to loadouts due to the restrictions that existed in the 3rd and 4th edition codices.
That hardly will scream "classic" to all those Tau players who joined from 6th edition onwards. The suits that you listed were used for 3 editions (3rd, 4th, 5th), and 2 out of the now 7 Tau codices.
But by all means bring back the weapon restrictions of 4th edition, if you also give me back the armoury options of 4th, and the ability to JSJ on all my jetpack units without needing to use a stratagem.
back in the days Landspeeder hat 3 weapons to chose from in any combination and 1 weapon as add-on
you could run flamer/melta/bolter+flamer/melta/bolter or flamer/melta/bolter+rocket launcher/assault cannon
now we have a Datacard for Bolter/Melter+Melta
one for Bolter+assault cannon or melta+assault cannon or melta+flamer
and one for bolter+rocket launcher or melta+rocket launcher
players are not happy with any option, having only 1 and paying points for weapons not taken, or having multiple cards with fixed loadouts
EDIT:
Speaking of invisible differences, the Land Raiders are different speeds. The classic Lascannon loadout has a move of 10", while the Crusader and Redeemer have a move of 12". Huh.
They really must have split up the designers and handed them an alphabetical list with breakpoints between the land raiders and other units.... And then banished each of the designers in a room on a diffrent floor and with strict prohibition to speak to one another.
How else do you reach something like this. And it isn't the only exemple, the Eldar have something similar with fireprisms and another unit.
Or crusader being more of assault version classically represents that by greater speed?
Less weight due to lack of energy generators for 4 lascannons.
kodos wrote: back in the days Landspeeder hat 3 weapons to chose from in any combination and 1 weapon as add-on
you could run flamer/melta/bolter+flamer/melta/bolter or flamer/melta/bolter+rocket launcher/assault cannon
now we have a Datacard for Bolter/Melter+Melta one for Bolter+assault cannon or melta+assault cannon or melta+flamer and one for bolter+rocket launcher or melta+rocket launcher
players are not happy with any option, having only 1 and paying points for weapons not taken, or having multiple cards with fixed loadouts
So, the total number of unique loadouts for those old landspeeders (going from the 5th edition codex as it is what I have to hand) was:
1) Heavy Bolter 2) Heavy Bolter and Missile launcher 3) Heavy Bolter and Heavy Flamer 4) Heavy Bolter and Heavy Bolter 5) Heavy Bolter and Multi-Melta 6) Heavy Bolter and Assault Cannon 7) H. Flamer 8) H. Flamer and Missile Launcher 9) H. Flamer and Multi-Melta 10) H. Flamer and H. Flamer 11) H. Flamer and A. Cannon 11) Multi-Melta 12) Multi-Melta and Missile Launcher 13) Multi-Melta and Multi-Melta 14) Multi-Melta and A. Cannon
14 unique loadouts possible. Not bad, but less than half of the 35 available from, again, just the weapons in the Crisis Suit kit which is ignoring any weapon options not in the kit but available to the unit (CIB and Frag), and other wargear choices such as support systems and shield generators.
the sensible way is to have a unit, and to have upgrades, with point values for that upgrade on that unit, this is where 8th fell over trying to have a fixed cost for a weapon without considering what it it did platform by platform
you can then have stuff like
may take weapon A for 10 points
may take weapon B for 10 points
may take both weapons A and B for 25 points
as well as disallowing some combinations or whatever is needed for that specific unit
ditto say only allowing any unit card to be taken once and once only, but the card indicating how many units you can have, e.g. for say a tank
[i]may take one of these tanks for 100 points
may take two individual units of of these tanks for 210 points
may take one unit of two tanks for 190 points
etc.
thus you can say allow a unit of snipers, for a cost, but brining two such units, while more flexible, costs you more
this sort of thing is apparently far too complicated these days
leopard wrote: the sensible way is to have a unit, and to have upgrades, with point values for that upgrade on that unit, this is where 8th fell over trying to have a fixed cost for a weapon without considering what it it did platform by platform
They had variable weapon costs back in 3rd Edition. Heavy Weapons had a higher cost in a Dev Squad than they did in a Tactical Squad. Didn't make a lot of sense then, still doesn't today.
leopard wrote: the sensible way is to have a unit, and to have upgrades, with point values for that upgrade on that unit, this is where 8th fell over trying to have a fixed cost for a weapon without considering what it it did platform by platform
They had variable weapon costs back in 3rd Edition. Heavy Weapons had a higher cost in a Dev Squad than they did in a Tactical Squad. Didn't make a lot of sense then, still doesn't today.
Yeah, that case didn't make sense as Devs had nothing that actually made the weapons better on that chassis than it was on tacticals. They should cost the same given that.
They had this exact thing in the Tau 9th edition codex. Some weapons were more expensive for the Commanders to take than they were for crisis suit teams. The Commander had better ballistic skill (2+), so got more value out of a one shot fusion blaster than the BS4+ Crisis suit, and so the cost was higher. The trick is getting the balance right between the two. In a similar vein, flamers cost the exact same on both, as the commander had no advantage using it over crisis suits, as it ignored BS.
leopard wrote: the sensible way is to have a unit, and to have upgrades, with point values for that upgrade on that unit, this is where 8th fell over trying to have a fixed cost for a weapon without considering what it it did platform by platform
They had variable weapon costs back in 3rd Edition. Heavy Weapons had a higher cost in a Dev Squad than they did in a Tactical Squad. Didn't make a lot of sense then, still doesn't today.
I would say a marine tactical squad and a marine devastator squad likely would and should have the same cost for say a laser cannon, the guy carrying it is the same and while the tac squad gets one and the dev squad can get four that is countered in other ways as they borderline have different roles (one being a gun battery to take down larger things, the other more useful to finish things off and generally support the squad its in)
I would however suggest that say a power fist should cost more on a terminator than a marine, due to the survivability of the platform, and should cost more on a character with a higher SW and more attacks
it is entirely situational, which is why is should be on the profile, then you get a higher cost, or even a reduced one, on units that can get more or less utility from an option
you also can play into the law of diminishing returns, e.g. maybe the third tactical squad should cost slightly less than the first two, and the forth slightly less again, ditto how HH used to do it where the squad had a cost per model, but the cost to add models to the squad was lower
Boosykes wrote: Only way I see it working for older players is if WYSIWYG is done away with. Kinda sad but maybe it will open up modeling opertunity.
Unclear why people keep insisting WYSIWYG is going away, both players still need to be able to identify what weapon models have.
This is especially true for units that can't have 'two of the same' special weapon.
Boosykes wrote: Only way I see it working for older players is if WYSIWYG is done away with. Kinda sad but maybe it will open up modeling opertunity.
Unclear why people keep insisting WYSIWYG is going away, both players still need to be able to identify what weapon models have.
This is especially true for units that can't have 'two of the same' special weapon.
I suspect this is aimed purely so those who have already built armies can compete with the "SPAM EVERYTHINGZ!!!" newer armies, presumably until some semblance of sanity returns with some sort of restrictions
when there will be the same level of screaming from those who added every single bit of bling they could find and now find it costs points
personally it doesn't overly bother me, all I generally as if someone is proxying one weapon as another is that they are consistent about it (e.g. in my HH army all the plasma pistol models are actually hand flamers)
Boosykes wrote: Only way I see it working for older players is if WYSIWYG is done away with. Kinda sad but maybe it will open up modeling opertunity.
Unclear why people keep insisting WYSIWYG is going away, both players still need to be able to identify what weapon models have.
This is especially true for units that can't have 'two of the same' special weapon.
I think for anything with an option, yes. For things like the battlewagon where most upgrades are additive, then by all means just make it base profile then apply wysiwyg once you change the turret from the default weapon. or have "battlewagon weapon" if so inclined.
So you lot have spent the last few years arguing that GW is too lazy/stupid/bad at balancing things & haven't been happy with any combo of pts for the different weapon options.....
And GW literally confirmed it with their comments on the coming Legends of the Heresy.
But you still expect them to chase that Grail for another 3 years?
ccs wrote: So you lot have spent the last few years arguing that GW is too lazy/stupid/bad at balancing things & haven't been happy with any combo of pts for the different weapon options.....
And GW literally confirmed it with their comments on the coming Legends of the Heresy.
But you still expect them to chase that Grail for another 3 years?
Why? What results do you think you'd get?
Who knows. I expected them to dum-dum down a lot of options which some of them they did (combi-weapons, melee weapons on nid warriors) then the vast majority they did not (Nid warrior ranged weapons, melee weapons on assault squads). The former can have single point values IF the options that do remain, they of parity in terms of worth. If they not, or in the case of the latter where there are designated "better" options, you need points.
I want them to see either option to the end. They have not committed to anything so far, which is why there are issues.
I really hate what they did with Leman Russ wargear.
We didn't get free war gear.
We got forced to pay for maxed out war gear.
Nobody every bought hunter killer missiles.
Heavy stubbers were a "If you have 5 points left over" type deal.
Multimelta sponsons were a situational thing, because putting that many points into a chassis was risky.
Now you have to pay for all of that, and in some cases pay a little extra more for some abilities.
The Tank Commander now cost 240 points, that's more than a Repulsor Executioner.
240 points just to give a single tank (NOT THE TANK COMMANDER THEMSELF) an order, is waaay too high.
And compounding that with a the +1 order enhancement is just making the concentration of points an even riskier proposition, though it's approaching the level of a necessary risk.
I much prefer the old setup. Some units don't need all the bells and whistles, keep them cheap.
Other's need to be pimped out deathstars, make them expensive.
ccs wrote: So you lot have spent the last few years arguing that GW is too lazy/stupid/bad at balancing things & haven't been happy with any combo of pts for the different weapon options.....
And GW literally confirmed it with their comments on the coming Legends of the Heresy.
But you still expect them to chase that Grail for another 3 years?
Why? What results do you think you'd get?
Who knows. I expected them to dum-dum down a lot of options which some of them they did (combi-weapons, melee weapons on nid warriors) then the vast majority they did not (Nid warrior ranged weapons, melee weapons on assault squads). The former can have single point values IF the options that do remain, they of parity in terms of worth. If they not, or in the case of the latter where there are designated "better" options, you need points.
I want them to see either option to the end. They have not committed to anything so far, which is why there are issues.
This is going to turn into one of those "I told you so" things I mentioned in the likes/dislikes thread.
So let's get on with it....
YES, they have committed to something: Your options/upgrades cost zero pts.
This is how it works in Sigmar. This is how it worked with PL. This is what they showed you was coming with that pts update that came out along side Arks. At the very least you could see it coming months away. Now it's here in full.
And it's not going away. At least not in 10e.
Go ahead, file this away under I-Told-You-So.
leopard wrote: the sensible way is to have a unit, and to have upgrades, with point values for that upgrade on that unit, this is where 8th fell over trying to have a fixed cost for a weapon without considering what it it did platform by platform
They had variable weapon costs back in 3rd Edition. Heavy Weapons had a higher cost in a Dev Squad than they did in a Tactical Squad. Didn't make a lot of sense then, still doesn't today.
I'd argue the different point costs made alot of sense at the time, because units couldn't split fire and couldn't move and fire with Heavy weapons. A single Lascannon in a squad primarily equipped for battleline anti-infantry work is not worth as much as in a unit that's going to spend much of the battle being static and concentrated on AT/AMC work. The Devastator squad is going to be firing those Lascannons all game. The Tac squad will maybe shoot it twice, but then be involved in advancing, CC, or maneuvering firefights. And if it did stand still, sure the Lascannon can fire all game but the Bolters will often be wasted, not getting their full potential value.
The points costs worked because of the paradigm they were under.
ccs wrote: So you lot have spent the last few years arguing that GW is too lazy/stupid/bad at balancing things & haven't been happy with any combo of pts for the different weapon options.....
And GW literally confirmed it with their comments on the coming Legends of the Heresy.
But you still expect them to chase that Grail for another 3 years?
Why? What results do you think you'd get?
Who knows. I expected them to dum-dum down a lot of options which some of them they did (combi-weapons, melee weapons on nid warriors) then the vast majority they did not (Nid warrior ranged weapons, melee weapons on assault squads). The former can have single point values IF the options that do remain, they of parity in terms of worth. If they not, or in the case of the latter where there are designated "better" options, you need points.
I want them to see either option to the end. They have not committed to anything so far, which is why there are issues.
This is going to turn into one of those "I told you so" things I mentioned in the likes/dislikes thread.
So let's get on with it....
YES, they have committed to something: Your options/upgrades cost zero pts.
This is how it works in Sigmar. This is how it worked with PL. This is what they showed you was coming with that pts update that came out along side Arks. At the very least you could see it coming months away. Now it's here in full.
And it's not going away. At least not in 10e.
Go ahead, file this away under I-Told-You-So.
I agree entirely, but they haven't seen it through in making things worth no points. They didn't even half and half. Ap were stuck with this frankenstein not-solution for a few years now.
Honestly, GW has never really been good evaluating points as it is. And the mathhammer folks have been too good at squeezing every ounce out point disparities as it is. This rules and balance thing isn't GW's main gig, they just want you to buy (lots) of their cool models.
Now the pressure is on not to optimize too hard. If you do with the current point scale, you're going to run out of people who want to play against you mighty quick. It's an insidious but ingenious way to force the community to not take the game too seriously.
Huh? Isn't it the other way around now?
You might not have picked the best option (e.g. a flamer), but at least you didn't pay as much points for it? Now you have a worse loadout and not even get compensated for it.
First off, I don't agree with what GW has done, I think it's extremely lazy. If their going to offer/sell these rules, figuring this stuff out is their job, not something to brush off or push off to the player base.
However, I can't count the number of times people were already complaining that points weren't right for this option or that and not worth/too efficient for their cost, so does it really matter for this version or not? If you take a TAC list, it'll probably balance out.
As someone else mentioned, this really hurts the people who aren't familiar with the "true value" of different options or loadout and don't realize they're underloading or overloading their roster. The ones who mathhammer their armies are the ones who are going to have to learn moderation or risk having no one willing to play with them.
leopard wrote: the sensible way is to have a unit, and to have upgrades, with point values for that upgrade on that unit, this is where 8th fell over trying to have a fixed cost for a weapon without considering what it it did platform by platform
They had variable weapon costs back in 3rd Edition. Heavy Weapons had a higher cost in a Dev Squad than they did in a Tactical Squad. Didn't make a lot of sense then, still doesn't today.
I'd argue the different point costs made alot of sense at the time, because units couldn't split fire and couldn't move and fire with Heavy weapons. A single Lascannon in a squad primarily equipped for battleline anti-infantry work is not worth as much as in a unit that's going to spend much of the battle being static and concentrated on AT/AMC work. The Devastator squad is going to be firing those Lascannons all game. The Tac squad will maybe shoot it twice, but then be involved in advancing, CC, or maneuvering firefights. And if it did stand still, sure the Lascannon can fire all game but the Bolters will often be wasted, not getting their full potential value.
The points costs worked because of the paradigm they were under.
I disagree. Devastators paid the price of being able to take multiple big guns by being a heavy support slot, taking up one of only 3 you would have access to. You are effectively taking a Tac squad that, for the price of taking one third of your heavy slots, can take 4 heavy weapons in a 5 man squad and loses access to special weapons. The guns didn't need to cost more on top of that.
leopard wrote: the sensible way is to have a unit, and to have upgrades, with point values for that upgrade on that unit, this is where 8th fell over trying to have a fixed cost for a weapon without considering what it it did platform by platform
They had variable weapon costs back in 3rd Edition. Heavy Weapons had a higher cost in a Dev Squad than they did in a Tactical Squad. Didn't make a lot of sense then, still doesn't today.
I'd argue the different point costs made alot of sense at the time, because units couldn't split fire and couldn't move and fire with Heavy weapons. A single Lascannon in a squad primarily equipped for battleline anti-infantry work is not worth as much as in a unit that's going to spend much of the battle being static and concentrated on AT/AMC work. The Devastator squad is going to be firing those Lascannons all game. The Tac squad will maybe shoot it twice, but then be involved in advancing, CC, or maneuvering firefights. And if it did stand still, sure the Lascannon can fire all game but the Bolters will often be wasted, not getting their full potential value.
The points costs worked because of the paradigm they were under.
I disagree. Devastators paid the price of being able to take multiple big guns by being a heavy support slot, taking up one of only 3 you would have access to. You are effectively taking a Tac squad that, for the price of taking one third of your heavy slots, can take 4 heavy weapons in a 5 man squad and loses access to special weapons. The guns didn't need to cost more on top of that.
Disagree, because if Lascannons only cost 15 points for Devastators they'd be way too good. And if Lascannons cost 35 points on Tacticals they wouldn't be worth it.
Could there have been a happy medium? Probably not without having knock-on effects with other competing units. Making them cost different works fine. I don't see the issue with it either, everyone should know that the worth of equipment is variable when applied to different contexts.
A Town Called Malus wrote: So, which of those is the "correct" loadout for the points cost of the unit, where it is supposedly balanced against other equivalently costed units in a similar role and I am not being TFG by taking the piss with all the free wargear that I can take?
Gee, I don't think the system works.
The model with everything, allegedly. I doubt that's true everywhere but you can clearly see the intent comparing some specific units; legionaries costing more than rubric marines is laughable at first blush but does make sense if you assume the legionaries are fully kitted out.
Overall, I really like how things are done. I think in most cases making things function different is better than trying to make them equal via points. Similarly I think toys costing boys was always a tough sell and I think the game is more interesting when its options are readily avialable.
That said, not EVERYTHING is sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes it makes sense just to have a super power thing and while a lot of them are done well here, there are definitely options that just aren't cutting it. I think though, part of me is taking heavy solice in the knowledge that the exact same issue would be true with points, just for different reasons.
The model with everything, allegedly. I doubt that's true everywhere but you can clearly see the intent comparing some specific units; legionaries costing more than rubric marines is laughable at first blush but does make sense if you assume the legionaries are fully kitted out.
Yet somehow 1ksons are much better as an index army, then chaos. Just plain more efficient. Plus there are armies that don't options, or didn't have options. Or the options were just bad, and often stayed bad in the codex. Then a streamline system like that, especialy when some factions are undercosted, does not end with fun games. You just like feel, as if the othe side had a few hundred points extra. And it get really bad, if your army pulled the short one rules wise in 10th.
There's a lot more to Thousand Sons being strong than Rubrics costing one less than Legionaries. I don't think CSM is totally woeful either, though obviously a lot of meta perceptions are gonna be distorted right now because of Eldar existing.
Stormonu wrote: However, I can't count the number of times people were already complaining that points weren't right for this option or that and not worth/too efficient for their cost, so does it really matter for this version or not? If you take a TAC list, it'll probably balance out.
Let's say we have a character who has a bolt pistol and can optionally take a plasma pistol. Let's say the plasma pistol is objectively, according to critical consensus of a million billion competitive players backed up by Deep Blue, worth 5pts.
GW can't balance worth a damn. So they initially set it at 8pts. The competitive players complain that the plasma pistol is never worthwhile and don't use it. The casual players might take it and overpay a bit, and in return for the points their unit becomes more powerful.
GW rebalances to 3pts. The competitive players consider plasma pistols an auto-take. But for casual players who don't have one modeled, hey, you save 3pts.
GW unveils 10th and now the plasma pistol is 0pts. The competitive players will take plasma pistols because duh, you'd be a moron not to. But the casual players who have bolt pistols don't get a few points back like before; they get nothing.
We all know GW sucks at balancing. The problem is that this makes it worse. Instead of having choices that aren't cost-efficient or are too cost-efficient, you have these no-brainer choices where there's no reason whatsoever not to take the more powerful option.
It's not an alternative and it's not a solution. It's the same system- we're still using points- except erring on the side of under-valuing options; the game design equivalent of just circling 'A' for every answer so you can get the test over with. I would much rather have sloppy, half-assed points values rounded to the nearest 5 than for everything to simply be free, because then at least some attempt was made.
And there's no reason why having points costs for significant upgrades can't coexist with the sidegrade system. Special weapons can stay free if they're all balanced against one another. It's the things like thunder hammers, venom cannons, plasma pistols, or sponson guns that represent clear upgrades with no downside and really ought to have some associated cost.
And it's not like it is just a single plasma pistol. I could have over a dozen different sergeants/officers that can take plasma pistols now. That is a significant change, especially as I have nowhere near enough plasma pistols to replace them.
Not that I would rip my models up like that, but I shouldn't even feel forced to.
Trickstick wrote: And it's not like it is just a single plasma pistol. I could have over a dozen different sergeants/officers that can take plasma pistols now. That is a significant change, especially as I have nowhere near enough plasma pistols to replace them.
Not that I would rip my models up like that, but I shouldn't even feel forced to.
Even worse since the squads are priced at full and KT is a thing, KT squads have significantly MORE options to slap on that are already priced in.
Hence why Legionaires, despite being nothing more than tacs, just baseline cost way more.
Stormonu wrote: However, I can't count the number of times people were already complaining that points weren't right for this option or that and not worth/too efficient for their cost, so does it really matter for this version or not? If you take a TAC list, it'll probably balance out.
GW rebalances to 3pts. The competitive players consider plasma pistols an auto-take. But for casual players who don't have one modeled, hey, you save 3pts.
GW unveils 10th and now the plasma pistol is 0pts. The competitive players will take plasma pistols because duh, you'd be a moron not to. But the casual players who have bolt pistols don't get a few points back like before; they get nothing.
I'm a purely casual player and I've never gotten any pts back for taking/just having a Bolt Pistol. (in some cases, with my Guard over the years that BP actually cost me a pt or so!)
My SMtac squad sgt? He didn't get any cheaper because I opted to not up-grade him. I still spent the same base 18pts or whatever on him. Meanwhile that Sgt I did give a plasma pistol to? He cost me extra.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Why would the Sergeant get cheaper because you chose not to upgrade him?
Becuase the unit over all cost is based around the idea that you are taking every possible upgrade. That is how you end up with some armies having very high cost units. Problem with that is, aside for not everyone wanting to rebuild entire units or buy replacements of identical units, is that it doesn't care what ever the upgrade is worth taking or not. So army wise, the upgrade isn't "free" because it is backed in to a unit cost. You wouldn't want a long range support squad have an upped cost of the unit over all, because the box include a powerfist/claw/etc option. It is also bad for internal balance between similar factions. Lets say faction X is better with a specific weapon, normaly the weapon isn't optimal, but the army can make it work, through a combination of extra rules and lets say the option being cheaper, it was less optimal. Now if the most optimal option costs the same, then the special rule of the faction doesn't matter, because the correct way would be to take the most optimal option. Now later on a codex can fix that, but with how updates look in w40k, this can mean a 2+ year wait time.
catbarf wrote: GW rebalances to 3pts. The competitive players consider plasma pistols an auto-take. But for casual players who don't have one modeled, hey, you save 3pts.
GW unveils 10th and now the plasma pistol is 0pts. The competitive players will take plasma pistols because duh, you'd be a moron not to. But the casual players who have bolt pistols don't get a few points back like before; they get nothing.
I'm a purely casual player and I've never gotten any pts back for taking/just having a Bolt Pistol. (in some cases, with my Guard over the years that BP actually cost me a pt or so!)
My SMtac squad sgt? He didn't get any cheaper because I opted to not up-grade him. I still spent the same base 18pts or whatever on him. Meanwhile that Sgt I did give a plasma pistol to? He cost me extra.
Replace 'don't get a few points back' with 'don't get to save a few points' if you're going to hyperfixate on the phrasing. It's the same thing.
Your sergeant was 18pts, and that was cheaper than 18pts + whatever a plasma pistol cost. Come 10th Ed you still have no plasma pistol, but now GW's balancing the unit and points around the assumption you have one, and you don't even get the consolation prize of having the unit cost fewer points than one that does have a plasma pistol.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Why would the Sergeant get cheaper because you chose not to upgrade him?
Becuase the unit over all cost is based around the idea that you are taking every possible upgrade. That is how you end up with some armies having very high cost units. Problem with that is, aside for not everyone wanting to rebuild entire units or buy replacements of identical units, is that it doesn't care what ever the upgrade is worth taking or not. So army wise, the upgrade isn't "free" because it is backed in to a unit cost. You wouldn't want a long range support squad have an upped cost of the unit over all, because the box include a powerfist/claw/etc option. It is also bad for internal balance between similar factions. Lets say faction X is better with a specific weapon, normaly the weapon isn't optimal, but the army can make it work, through a combination of extra rules and lets say the option being cheaper, it was less optimal. Now if the most optimal option costs the same, then the special rule of the faction doesn't matter, because the correct way would be to take the most optimal option. Now later on a codex can fix that, but with how updates look in w40k, this can mean a 2+ year wait time.
are there any actual armies LIKE that though Karol? given subfactions have largely been swept away? I know that in prior editions salamnders used flamers better, IFs used bolters better etc, but they're all marines using the gladius detachment right now
are there any actual armies LIKE that though Karol? given subfactions have largely been swept away? I know that in prior editions salamnders used flamers better, IFs used bolters better etc, but they're all marines using the gladius detachment right now
Maybe not right now but it'll happen. Might be at the first codex or the traditional GW mid-edition design paradigm shift, but it will come.
EDIT: And actually, some of the Space Marine chapters do basically have that in their detachment rules. Black Templars have 2 vows in their possible choices that just make them flat better in melee by adding extra rules to the melee weapons of Adeptus Astartes units (lethal hits or sustained hits).
Blood Angels all get +1 strength and +1 attack on the charge, which is added to all melee weapons that the unit has.
Space Wolf sagas can also add rules like Sustained Hits and Lethal Hits to melee weapons when they are completed.
So, yes. There are rules that make units in some detachments flat out better than identical units in a different detachment, despite both units costing the same points.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Why would the Sergeant get cheaper because you chose not to upgrade him?
That's my point, they didn't & don't. You don't get anything "back" by not upgrading (or taking a lesser upgrade). You just didn't pay as much.
Catbarf is claiming that those of us with Sgts etc wielding Bolt Pistols are being disadvantaged by cheaper plasma pistols because ... well somehow.
Idk about plasma pistols breaking anything but the fact is costs are baked in. Many maybe even all armies have symptoms of that right now.
Tank commanders, scourges, reavers, kabalites all come to mind. Their costs reflect the best upgrades rather than a middle ground or no costs at all.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Why would the Sergeant get cheaper because you chose not to upgrade him?
That's my point, they didn't & don't. You don't get anything "back" by not upgrading (or taking a lesser upgrade). You just didn't pay as much. Catbarf is claiming that those of us with Sgts etc wielding Bolt Pistols are being disadvantaged by cheaper plasma pistols because ... well somehow.
You are though. Where previously there was a points differential between two units, now there is none.
Look at it from a different frame of reference. Instead of thinking of it as plasma pistols getting cheaper, instead your bolt pistols have all increased to be the same cost as plasma pistols and this cost is hardcoded into the unit and inescapable. Previously model A cost 15 points, bolt pistol was included in that cost and plasma cost 5 extra. Now that model still costs 15 but plasma costs 0, effectively meaning that the cost to upgrade to plasma is built into that 15 points. That's the same as saying the model costs 10 and both the plasma and bolt pistol each cost 5. The model has had an effective price cut before wargear, which is equal to the cost of the most expensive loadout you could put on that model previously. But you cannot take advantage of that cut because the cost of all weapons has been raised to be equal to the cost of what was the most expensive option previously. So unless you are taking that most expensive loadout, the cost of all of your weapons has been increased relative to before.
Lets look at Crisis suits under this framework to calculate the new base cost of a single crisis suit model with no wargear. In 10th crisis suits costs 65 points per model with 3 guns and a shield generator included. Under the 9th edition points (don't have the errata to hand so we'll go by the numbers in the book), the most expensive gun loadout for a Crisis suit was triple CIB. That wargear (3 CIBs and a shield generator) comes to 60 points. Let's subtract that from the cost of a decked out crisis in 10th to work out how many points we're paying for the base profile before we add wargear. So, we have 65-60=5. 5 points is what crisis suits would have cost in 9th before you added the guns for them to cost the same as they do for an identical loadout in 10th. And we didn't even get to drones which are harder to quantify due to the changes but still I think most people would agree that +2 wounds on an already 4 wound model is worth more than 5 points. In 10th edition, Crisis suits are effectively negative points in cost per model before you pay for wargear if you give them 3 CIBs, a shield generator, and 2 shield drones each. Meanwhile, the person who put 1 Burst Cannon, 1 Plasma Rifle, and 1 Flamer without a sheild generator on their crisis suit was paying 15 points total for those weapons on top of the base cost of the model in 9th. They're paying 65 points in 10th. So under the new rules, their crisis suit effectively costs them 50 points per model before wargear.
I think that demonstrates how utterly fethed this approach to points is.
Man, the more you examine this system the more it reveals how utterly, utterly fethed it is in whole new ways. It's like a fractal of bad game design, you look at one part and an infinitude of new bad decisions spirals out, forever.
ccs wrote: Catbarf is claiming that those of us with Sgts etc wielding Bolt Pistols are being disadvantaged by cheaper plasma pistols because ... well somehow.
I think it's pretty clear what he's getting at.
It all comes down to one simple immutable truth: Upgrades should cost points. You shouldn't get any upgrade for free.
catbarf wrote: GW rebalances to 3pts. The competitive players consider plasma pistols an auto-take. But for casual players who don't have one modeled, hey, you save 3pts.
GW unveils 10th and now the plasma pistol is 0pts. The competitive players will take plasma pistols because duh, you'd be a moron not to. But the casual players who have bolt pistols don't get a few points back like before; they get nothing.
I'm a purely casual player and I've never gotten any pts back for taking/just having a Bolt Pistol. (in some cases, with my Guard over the years that BP actually cost me a pt or so!)
My SMtac squad sgt? He didn't get any cheaper because I opted to not up-grade him. I still spent the same base 18pts or whatever on him. Meanwhile that Sgt I did give a plasma pistol to? He cost me extra.
Replace 'don't get a few points back' with 'don't get to save a few points' if you're going to hyperfixate on the phrasing. It's the same thing.
Totally not the same thing. I didn't save any pts because the Sgt was already as cheap as the rules allowed.
catbarf wrote: Your sergeant was 18pts, and that was cheaper than 18pts + whatever a plasma pistol cost. Come 10th Ed you still have no plasma pistol, but now GW's balancing the unit and points around the assumption you have one, and you don't even get the consolation prize of having the unit cost fewer points than one that does have a plasma pistol.
Yeah, you know what? My Tac squads now cost 175pt for 10 guys. I'm not sweating it that my BP armed Sgt now works out to the ungodly sum of 7.5 pts no matter what he is/isn't equipped with.
And the models been in use for almost 20 years armed with just BP/chainsword - so clearly I'm not concerned that I'm missing the firepower.
What I am slightly annoyed by is the fact that I have to take the full 10 man squad - because it means I can't mount some of them in a Razorback anymore & gives me no reason to buy an Impulsor(?).
A Town Called Malus wrote: So, yes. There are rules that make units in some detachments flat out better than identical units in a different detachment, despite both units costing the same points.
I think SW is maligned, because of how hard it seems. At the same time SW can potentially ( though quite unlikely ) achieve all of those Sagas.
There's a fair amount of durability buffs on top of character hunting to encourages you to lunge forward like a Space Wolf might.
There just isn't a lot of room for stuff like that to be effective now with things as wonky as they are.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Why would the Sergeant get cheaper because you chose not to upgrade him?
That's my point, they didn't & don't. You don't get anything "back" by not upgrading (or taking a lesser upgrade). You just didn't pay as much.
Catbarf is claiming that those of us with Sgts etc wielding Bolt Pistols are being disadvantaged by cheaper plasma pistols because ... well somehow.
You do lose out...I just don't think a few plasma pistols are shaking the game a ton. Especially now that Hazardous can't be rerolled away. Plasma has never been more of a choice than with these rules.
Obviously you don't have to OC, but it's not wildly better.
ccs wrote: I didn't save any pts because the Sgt was already as cheap as the rules allowed.
You saved points by not upgrading to a plasma pistol. Now you have to pay a baked-in cost for the plasma pistol you don't get, because GW isn't balancing around naked squads.
You don't get to field the cheap naked sergeant anymore. You get to field a naked sergeant priced as if he had a plasma pistol.
ccs wrote: Yeah, you know what? My Tac squads now cost 175pt for 10 guys. I'm not sweating it that my BP armed Sgt now works out to the ungodly sum of 7.5 pts no matter what he is/isn't equipped with.
In my Guard army I've got over a dozen characters who could have plasma pistols instead of laspistols. I have multiple tanks that could have sponsons. I have squads that have heavy bolters and not lascannons. I have Sentinels without chainsaws, Chimeras without hunter-killer missiles, infantry squads without heavy weapons, command squads without medics or banners. You really think all of that amounts to nothing?
ccs wrote: And the models been in use for almost 20 years armed with just BP/chainsword - so clearly I'm not concerned that I'm missing the firepower.
But maybe you are going to notice when you go up against an army built with these points costs in mind, and at 2000pts you're facing what would have been a 2300-2500pt army in prior editions while you still only have 2000pts of stuff.
I don't feel I should have to explicitly say this, but the issue isn't actually just about SM sergeants with plasma pistols.
I don't feel I should have to explicitly say this, but the issue isn't actually just about SM sergeants with plasma pistols.
This. See my post prior about how some crisis suit loadouts will effectively give you points as the base cost of the model becomes negative once you account for the built in wargear costs if those wargear options are assumed to cost the same as they did in 9th.
I don't feel I should have to explicitly say this, but the issue isn't actually just about SM sergeants with plasma pistols.
This. See my post prior about how some crisis suit loadouts will effectively give you points as the base cost of the model becomes negative once you account for the built in wargear costs if those wargear options cost the same as they did in 9th.
I think you can reasonably say that a different edition would have different points costs. You can't use 9th costs one-to-one, especially since I don't think anyone took all three of the same weapon on Crisis Suits (mostly because of escalating points costs-which was a fine bit of design).
That being said-the current approach of GW's points is terrible. It's a neat concept to have all heavy weapons equal other heavies, specials equal other specials, so on and so forth... But the execution is awful, and some things are straight upgrades. Sponsons are not equal to not-sponsons, for instance.
I don't feel I should have to explicitly say this, but the issue isn't actually just about SM sergeants with plasma pistols.
This. See my post prior about how some crisis suit loadouts will effectively give you points as the base cost of the model becomes negative once you account for the built in wargear costs if those wargear options cost the same as they did in 9th.
I think you can reasonably say that a different edition would have different points costs. You can't use 9th costs one-to-one, especially since I don't think anyone took all three of the same weapon on Crisis Suits (mostly because of escalating points costs-which was a fine bit of design).
That being said-the current approach of GW's points is terrible. It's a neat concept to have all heavy weapons equal other heavies, specials equal other specials, so on and so forth... But the execution is awful, and some things are straight upgrades. Sponsons are not equal to not-sponsons, for instance.
I don't see why I can't. The profile of the crisis suit is identical, as is the profile of the weapon short of losing assault (which all crisis weapons did) and the changes to overcharging (EDIT: I also noticed that the base profile did also actually lose a point of AP, so I was wrong here), and the shield generator is also identical.
So, given that we have literally nothing else to base the points on, I think using the previous costs is perfectly acceptable for this demonstration.
Daedalus81 wrote: You do lose out...I just don't think a few plasma pistols are shaking the game a ton. Especially now that Hazardous can't be rerolled away. Plasma has never been more of a choice than with these rules.
Kinda missing the woods for the trees there, Daed. The issue isn't specific to Plasma Pistols, but Plasma Pistols are indicative of the issue as a whole.
I don't feel I should have to explicitly say this, but the issue isn't actually just about SM sergeants with plasma pistols.
This. See my post prior about how some crisis suit loadouts will effectively give you points as the base cost of the model becomes negative once you account for the built in wargear costs if those wargear options cost the same as they did in 9th.
I think you can reasonably say that a different edition would have different points costs. You can't use 9th costs one-to-one, especially since I don't think anyone took all three of the same weapon on Crisis Suits (mostly because of escalating points costs-which was a fine bit of design).
That being said-the current approach of GW's points is terrible. It's a neat concept to have all heavy weapons equal other heavies, specials equal other specials, so on and so forth... But the execution is awful, and some things are straight upgrades. Sponsons are not equal to not-sponsons, for instance.
I don't see why I can't. The profile of the crisis suit is identical, as is the profile of the weapon short of losing assault (which all crisis weapons did) and the changes to overcharging, and the shield generator is also identical.
So, given that we have literally nothing else to base the points on, I think using the previous costs is perfectly acceptable for this demonstration.
The whole game changed, though.
A 4++, for instance, is very valuable when your base save is 3+ and AP-2 or better is very common. When AP better than -1 is much more rare, it's not worth as much.
Again, I'll stress that I'm with you on "Upgrades should cost points." I just think your example is not perfect.
I don't feel I should have to explicitly say this, but the issue isn't actually just about SM sergeants with plasma pistols.
This. See my post prior about how some crisis suit loadouts will effectively give you points as the base cost of the model becomes negative once you account for the built in wargear costs if those wargear options cost the same as they did in 9th.
I think you can reasonably say that a different edition would have different points costs. You can't use 9th costs one-to-one, especially since I don't think anyone took all three of the same weapon on Crisis Suits (mostly because of escalating points costs-which was a fine bit of design).
That being said-the current approach of GW's points is terrible. It's a neat concept to have all heavy weapons equal other heavies, specials equal other specials, so on and so forth... But the execution is awful, and some things are straight upgrades. Sponsons are not equal to not-sponsons, for instance.
I don't see why I can't. The profile of the crisis suit is identical, as is the profile of the weapon short of losing assault (which all crisis weapons did) and the changes to overcharging, and the shield generator is also identical.
So, given that we have literally nothing else to base the points on, I think using the previous costs is perfectly acceptable for this demonstration.
The whole game changed, though. A 4++, for instance, is very valuable when your base save is 3+ and AP-2 or better is very common. When AP better than -1 is much more rare, it's not worth as much.
Again, I'll stress that I'm with you on "Upgrades should cost points." I just think your example is not perfect.
The shield generator is only 5 points out of the 60. So even if that is free, the base crisis suit is still only 10 points before drones when equipped with 3 CIBs using 9th edition points costs. The costs of 3 CIBs need to have been cut by 20 points total, over one third of what those weapons cost in 9th, before we get the base chassis to the pre-codex-nerf cost of 30 points per model in 10th.
I don't think my points are perfect, due to the changes in 10th, but I think they are close enough to serve as a good demonstration.
Daedalus81 wrote: You do lose out...I just don't think a few plasma pistols are shaking the game a ton. Especially now that Hazardous can't be rerolled away. Plasma has never been more of a choice than with these rules.
Kinda missing the woods for the trees there, Daed. The issue isn't specific to Plasma Pistols, but Plasma Pistols are indicative of the issue as a whole.
No, I get it. There's definitely degrees. I magnetized my sponsors ages ago, because when you had to draw sight from the gun then paying for the pair could potentially be a waste of points. That dynamic has shifted from even that, but I imagine most people still have sponsons on magnet or sprue.
It's probably why they butchered VV and combi. It dramatically reduces the difference between fully upgraded and not. And also why blasters and inferno Pistols went to D3 from D6.
It's not perfect, but it's probably the only way to make nuPoints work in that context.
Daedalus81 wrote: No, I get it. There's definitely degrees. I magnetized my sponsors ages ago, because when you had to draw sight from the gun then paying for the pair could potentially be a waste of points. That dynamic has shifted from even that, but I imagine most people still have sponsons on magnet or sprue.
Whether they do or not doesn't really matter: A Leman Russ with two sponson heavy bolters is objectively better than one without them... so it should have an associated cost. It doesn't, so it means that:
1. The system is inherently unbalanced, as things that are better do not cost more than things that are worse.
2. Things that do not take them are essentially paying for upgrades they are not using, and that's actually worse.
Daedalus81 wrote: It's probably why they butchered VV and combi. It dramatically reduces the difference between fully upgraded and not. And also why blasters and inferno Pistols went to D3 from D6.
I think they butchered combi-weapons because they've learnt the wrong lessons from 9th and didn't understand what people actually meant by "reduce bloat".
Daedalus81 wrote: It's not perfect, but it's probably the only way to make nuPoints work in that context.
I'd argue they don't work, regardless of how one might spin it. And don't call them points. It's Power Level with the serial numbers filed off.
we have seen during 7th edition how well the "a few free items won't shake up the game" went
not using points for upgrades is not reducing the amount of "math" but increase it
before your upgrades had points you could assume that they are priced right and 10 points extra are worth it
now you pay for the unit and need to figure out which upgrade is the best so you make the most out of the points you pay
but this is the main problem with GW, each time they are told that the game is too complicated and there is too much bloat their execution of their solution results in the opposite
Nothing you said is wrong, but at the same time I think it's possible to adapt.
I'll give acolytes as an example.
In a mining tool unit you have 4 tools and an icon. That leaves 5 spots for hand flamers, but taking flamers on that unit is irrelevant. You don't want to deepstrike and make your charge range longer. The autopistol mooks are there to take hits and get rezzed.
An acolyte unit that wants to shoot has all flamers. You don't really want mining tools in there. You want max overwatch potential.
So people can reorganize into melee or shooting units. Yes, this removes the choice of tools and flamers, but it let's you make a single price for the unit. ( and I think most people were organized this way already ).
Was it the right thing to do? Dunno. I'm not sure people were getting much out of an experience juggling a hand flamer or two with spare points. And the folks who jumped on the flamer craze still have a capable unit. I know some people will be lost in the gaps though and that jankier scenarios exist.
I'm not defending all the changes. I'm just approaching a problem with the most effective solution I can find
I have played since 3rd ed 1997 and for me list building and converting has always been something I have liked.
The new simplified say of taking increments of units does not appeal to me, except when playing with my kids. Power level/open war was great when learning 5-10 year olds.
I also do not like unit sizes and options being decided by box contents. I rarely build something out of the box. I feel this is a move that helps new players but deter us hobbyists with long experience and big collections.
Balance wise I fear most players will take the "best" loadouts since you don't save points on taking a slightly less competitive weapon. I foresee more lascannons and less heavy Bolters/autocannon in Imperial speak. Which reduces richness in variation.
The removal of FOC might also lead to less taking of troops, given most stronger units seem to have OC values too. We'll see. I don't like spam/skew lists.
of course it is possible to adept, but I won't do anything until I get the Codex for my factions
just not trusting GW here and I am not in the mood to change everything twice within a year
and it is not like as such an approach can work really well
AoS does it, KoW does it, why should it not work for 40k (well, the reason why it won't work for 40k is that GW does not cut down on units on the one side but also does not want to make several unit entries with points for the basic options, like 2 datacards without side weapons for LRBT with similar turret weapons grouped into 1 card, and 2 datacards with side weapons, having 4 that would cost different amount of points)
kodos wrote: we have seen during 7th edition how well the "a few free items won't shake up the game" went
This is not that though. This is, at worst, overpaying.
Considering the Pts on some units... cough prisms and wraithknight cough i am not certain it's just "overpaying", even tough units with options certainly seem to be looking at that problem.
Neophytes had all their unit leader's pistol options condensed into a "Leader Pistol" - even though those weapons had different niches and weren't direct upgrades.
I'm not sure why that wasn't done with AM Infantry Squads when the Plasma Pistol is a straight upgrade over the Las Pistol in every circumstance. Why not just have a "Sergeant Pistol" to match how GSC and other armies work?
I don't feel I should have to explicitly say this, but the issue isn't actually just about SM sergeants with plasma pistols.
This. See my post prior about how some crisis suit loadouts will effectively give you points as the base cost of the model becomes negative once you account for the built in wargear costs if those wargear options are assumed to cost the same as they did in 9th.
For basic infantry the Votann Hearthkyn really stand out. 10 of those bodies aren't worth 135 points. Not a chance.
2 (different, sigh) special weapons, sgt melee weapon, sgt plasma pistol, ignore cover, FNP 6+, and chance to get CP. That's all part of the cost for the unit (and I'm still not convinced they're worth 135).
Not taking all of the upgrades is a huge blow to the unit.
westiebestie wrote: I have played since 3rd ed 1997 and for me list building and converting has always been something I have liked.
Agree
The new simplified say of taking increments of units does not appeal to me, except when playing with my kids. Power level/open war was great when learning 5-10 year olds.
It is simplified, but it's deeper than it seems.
I also do not like unit sizes and options being decided by box contents. I rarely build something out of the box. I feel this is a move that helps new players but deter us hobbyists with long experience and big collections.
Yes, it's certainly geared for easier decisions there. It might even encourage the piles of shame to get built. I don't have to stress if a heavy weapon in a CSM squad will be worthwhile. Now it's just which weapon. Vehicle sponsons will still be magnetized. It's mostly Orks that become static on some of their stuff.
Balance wise I fear most players will take the "best" loadouts since you don't save points on taking a slightly less competitive weapon.
That's what they've always done, but that "best" loadout is between anti-tank / anti-horde / anti-elite instead of "this unit purely exists to fill a slot and I stripped all the upgrades from it so I could maximize my points elsewhere".
The removal of FOC might also lead to less taking of troops, given most stronger units seem to have OC values too. We'll see. I don't like spam/skew lists.
Which is the purpose for everything getting special rules and characters attaching to units. People were upset about character restrictions -- because really what many want to do is stick the most powerful buff in the most powerful unit. Now you pick a unit because it serves a role not because it fulfills the checklist.
I think the only real downside with having upgrades free is that it doesn't enable GW to sell you multiples of a single kit just to have every single permutation. I am actually amazed that GW doesn't have the tools to farm their players financially about intricate miniature details in the same way as before.
For players it will continue as before: The optimal build is always the best build. Choice is an illusion, something something something free will.
The new simplified say of taking increments of units does not appeal to me, except when playing with my kids. Power level/open war was great when learning 5-10 year olds.
It is simplified, but it's deeper than it seems.
I honestly believe that anyone who does not like the new unit sizes is not a fan of meaningful choices. When you can't snugly fit what you like MSU style everywhere you are more often than not forced to think what you are going for. It's one of the things I love(as well as frustrates me) in AoS. I can't just take exactly what I want and play around the system. I must commit to a choice and deal with the consequences. I was in an autumn league last autumn and my AoS list changed so much more than my 40k lists. Because if I had to change something in AoS it meant I would have to reorganize my entire army instead of snugly fitting something into an open slot.
And honestly, I do get the feeling a lot of players want the illusion of meaningful choices, but not actually have meaningful choices. Most of the upgrades used to give the illusion of choice, and people felt good about it. They thought that they unlocked some Tessaract vault by pinpointing the optimal loadout and combo, even if thousands of players had netlisted that exact thing themselves, but the illusion was there, and it felt good; almost like a miniature game skinner box.
Now, people might say I am harsh, but I have also been playing since 2nd edition and it's always about the optimal choice in each edition, which usually meant barebone squads with the occasional plasma or whatever the math showed was the next best thing. It also meant that with every new edition players would have to go buy more models to fill their shelves to get what was hot then or languish with a subpar model. Here is the tricky part though, and probably why GW decided to take this direction: 3D printing entered the game, along with a plethora of 3rd party printer shops and resin casters. Suddenly the old guard was buying all their upgrades and alternatives elsewhere, meaning that all those nice options GW was trying to sell you was probably being funneled more to shops that weren't GW. Although this is a conjecture on my part I wouldn't be too surprised either considering GW does not like that other manufacturers are playing in their own pool.
Also, I'd argue that the upgrade issue is more of a Space Marine issue than anything else. D&D 40k: Space Marine is real, and hangs around GW's neck like a 20 year old dead Albatross.
Not Online!!! wrote: Considering the Pts on some units... cough prisms and wraithknight cough i am not certain it's just "overpaying", even tough units with options certainly seem to be looking at that problem.
The more I think about it the more the Eldar problem is just Fate Dice plus their rerolls ( on top of their ability to hide ). The solution probably leans more on those parts than on just points. The WK theoretically took a bunch of nerfs into 10th so dropping it makes some sense - it's just really hard to see and it's also difficult to reconcile how people might come to the conclusion that double cannon isn't the best loadout.
With how easy it is to get cover that thing effectively has a 4++ vs AP3. And with AP reductions that matters quite a bit. Though partially this is where maneuvering comes into play. Getting to a firing angle where you can get a clear shot ( or bringing an ignore cover ability ) will be crucial. I doubt there's enough to make someone consider a shield though so it's a dead upgrade unless they want to go melee.
I clicked on yes, but I'm now leaning towards mixed. I like how easy list-building is now, but I don't like how it seems that the new style is pushing up the price of a number of units. I think that a good compromise would be where the points prices are lowered, with any upgrades that are not free costing five points each.
Eldarsif wrote:And honestly, I do get the feeling a lot of players want the illusion of meaningful choices, but not actually have meaningful choices. Most of the upgrades used to give the illusion of choice, and people felt good about it. They thought that they unlocked some Tessaract vault by pinpointing the optimal loadout and combo, even if thousands of players had netlisted that exact thing themselves, but the illusion was there, and it felt good; almost like a miniature game skinner box.
I've seen this argument a lot lately, that the old system had optimal choices so it wasn't any better, and I think that's bs.
In prior editions I could crunch numbers and figure out the optimal choice, but I wasn't punished as harshly for making a suboptimal choice. Even if the Super Awesome Death Ray was underpriced and a 'must-take', if I didn't like the model I could just not take it and put those points elsewhere. Now the SADR is free so if my model doesn't physically have it, I'm still paying for it via baked-in cost, but I get nothing in return.
I don't want to chase the meta. I just want to plunk down an army with my friends and expect that our armies are on a level playing field. A system where the actual combat power of a 2000pt army could vary wildly because the points don't account for significant force multipliers does not get me that. This was a problem in 7th with formations, it was a problem in 8th/9th with subfactions/relics/strats (or in Crusade, using PL), and now it's a problem with wargear.
I'm sure the game will be much better balanced for people just starting new armies with 10th in mind, and GW can reasonably balance around assuming a unit has all the bells and whistles. But there used to be choice that came from deciding how much to invest in a single unit, or whether an upgrade would actually be useful to how you intend to deploy the unit, and not all of that was stuff you could number-crunch out. Was doubling the cost of Termagants to triple their fire output worthwhile? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Was it worth putting four special weapons on your squad of Scions? Depends on what you were going to do with them. Was giving a Tactical Squad sergeant a thunder hammer worthwhile? That was up to how you employed the squad, and maybe it was worth the points or maybe it wasn't.
But no, now in 10th he has a thunder hammer regardless because there is no real choice. And if the model has a chainsword, you don't even get to say 'well, at least that can buy me a thunder hammer elsewhere' anymore. You get nothing- besides the question of whether you're going to play WYSIWYG anymore.
Eldarsif wrote:Also, I'd argue that the upgrade issue is more of a Space Marine issue than anything else.
I don't play Marines. I play Guard, where it's a massive issue (nearly every unit in my two Guard armies is 'under-strength' now, some to very significant degrees) and Tyranids, where it produces some frustratingly unintuitive unit builds (Tyranid Warriors that carry more heavy weapons than regular weapons, Rippers all have ranged weapons, etc). And that's without even getting into internal balance issues, where some weapons will just never see use because others are strictly better when there's no penalty to taking them.
These are all exactly the same issues people had with power level, and this points system is just power level with a funny mustache. We already know how this is going to play out in practice. The gulf in power between a casual army and a competitive army is going to be worse, not better.
I do wonder how long this free upgrades will last.
Eventually as GW makes balance point changes, they are going to notice some changes are easier with weapon point costs when some particular loadout overperforms.
Its definitely not just a marine issue. It affects dark elfs, squats, orks, admech, guard, even some necron units where you're just an idiot for not going all in (tomb blades, spyders)
Daemons are about the safest from it (greater daemons and soul grinder have some choices)
I don't think the 'if my model doesn't have it then I'm punished' angle works entirely, either.
If you have an old collection then the non-thunderhammer guy goes with the Devastators where the sarge barely ever swings in anger. Also, swinging twice with a TH or PF against 4 times with a Chainsword or 3 times with a power sword makes a usability case for those weapons. But more than likely you designed that squad to do something that wasn't melee oriented and they can still continue to do so and the odd engagement where they're down a thunderhammer is a matter of a small percentage depending on what you're fighting.
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Voss wrote: Its definitely not just a marine issue. It affects dark elfs, squats, orks, admech, guard, even some necron units where you're just an idiot for not going all in (tomb blades, spyders)
Daemons are about the safest from it (greater daemons and soul grinder have some choices)
On the Tomb Blade aspect - I would just skip the WYSIWYG aspect for the upgrades that few people know what they look like on the model.
Sure, a lot of the sergeant melee weapons are side-grades or close enough.
But that isn't universally true, and the problems go well beyond sarges.
Skipping WYSIWYG is a bad precedent. I want to know what everyone actually has, not make guesses and run into fights that are much worse than I thought. I've had people do that enough deliberately in the past that I have little tolerance for it.
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And now its even weirder with the combat patrol rules, where it expects an exact load-out, even if its something that you'd rarely (or never) use in the main game. That's an utterly baffling turn.
I wouldn't skip WYSIWYG entirely. Just for vehicle stuff, mostly. The most egregious issues are with Orks, really. There's lots of wagons without deffrollas and trukks without wrecking balls. Those aren't as simple, but I'm personally fine with just agreeing that the ramshackle vehicle has the capability.
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Voss wrote: And now its even weirder with the combat patrol rules, where it expects an exact load-out, even if its something that you'd rarely (or never) use in the main game. That's an utterly baffling turn.
Oh, yea. I looked at the one for TS and it had bp / chainsword on the Tzaangors. Both loadouts are fine, but I definitely prefer blades. I'd hate for the CP to lead someone to build the models a certain way, but most of them seem equivalent so far. They also had the missile rack on a different model from the heavy weapon, which is fine, but that's a competitive optimization thing that I don't think matters in most games.
Admittedly I have been skipping WYSIWYG with my nids since forever, because a surprisingly few amount of people know the difference between a venom cannon and a barbed strangler, or a devourer and a fleshborer.
Similarly, I have no idea how the different upgrades of a Necron Tomb Blade are supposed to look like.
It is only Marines* and Guard that "suffer" from everybody knowing how their weapons look like.
*Except Grey Knights, no idea how to differentiate bewteen their psy-weapons stuff.
Tyran wrote: I do wonder how long this free upgrades will last.
Eventually as GW makes balance point changes, they are going to notice some changes are easier with weapon point costs when some particular loadout overperforms.
My guess is that eventually GW will get a feel that some outliers need points. Which would mean that about less than 5% of the upgrades gets points at best.
On the Tomb Blade aspect - I would just skip the WYSIWYG aspect for the upgrades that few people know what they look like on the model.
It's actually amazing how many people have zero idea what each upgrade looks like, and that is before we realize that GW has had so many upgrades over the year that don't even have actual models or were never given a baseline look.
Some people are going to be WYSIWYG purists - but if "Combat Patrol" proves a popular way to play, I'm not going to bemoan that people have built their models differently. Especially when the loadouts are clearly nuts from a main game perspective.
I guess you could just not buy anything new for 6 months on the grounds GW may pivot out of free stuff, but I'm not sure they will.
Tyran wrote: Admittedly I have been skipping WYSIWYG with my nids since forever, because a surprisingly few amount of people know the difference between a venom cannon and a barbed strangler, or a devourer and a fleshborer.
It's also just annoying for Tyranids to have gazillion options for a horde army. It means that if a weapon changes or there are balance slates you can easily be forced into buying a second version of your army. It's one of the reasons I gave up on my Nids. I just got tired of shelving another Tyranid Warrior because now their loadout was utter garbage.
Then I had a Deathshroud with the super expensive sigil upgrade that no one ever took. In the end I just said "The Sigil means he is the sergeant" and people went with it.
Something I did like is that GW is trying to make weapons sidegrades.
I do believe that unit wide weapon options must be sidegrades when possible, with only individual model weapon upgrades like special and heavy weapons requiring point costs.
Daedalus81 wrote: I don't think the 'if my model doesn't have it then I'm punished' angle works entirely, either.
If you have an old collection then the non-thunderhammer guy goes with the Devastators where the sarge barely ever swings in anger. Also, swinging twice with a TH or PF against 4 times with a Chainsword or 3 times with a power sword makes a usability case for those weapons. But more than likely you designed that squad to do something that wasn't melee oriented and they can still continue to do so and the odd engagement where they're down a thunderhammer is a matter of a small percentage depending on what you're fighting.
You can reshuffle your army to try to mitigate the fact that your old units are underpowered. That doesn't mean they aren't underpowered.
And sure, some melee weapons are viable as sidegrades. Some aren't. Again, laspistol/bolt pistol vs plasma pistol. I wouldn't complain if those actually were sidegrades, and if not taking sponsons gave you some other kind of bonus, and if Rippers omitting Spinemaws got a benefit elsewhere. But there are so many upgrades that aren't sidegrades, you just get something for nothing.
Ditching WYSIWYG is an option, but WYSIWYG exists to help both players to keep track of what's on the field. My wife has three units of Wracks, and now each unit of 5 models gets 4 special weapons. Even if we give the Wracks the weapons that aren't modeled (because it makes a pretty substantial difference), how do we track which model has which weapon? Colored dots on the bases, I guess?
Eldarsif wrote: I honestly believe that anyone who does not like the new unit sizes is not a fan of meaningful choices. When you can't snugly fit what you like MSU style everywhere you are more often than not forced to think what you are going for. It's one of the things I love(as well as frustrates me) in AoS. I can't just take exactly what I want and play around the system. I must commit to a choice and deal with the consequences. I was in an autumn league last autumn and my AoS list changed so much more than my 40k lists. Because if I had to change something in AoS it meant I would have to reorganize my entire army instead of snugly fitting something into an open slot.
Why should list building be a jigsaw puzzle? You can add meaningful choices in all kinds of places where it doesn't fit what the game is trying to do. Like you could have units gain special bonuses depending on what letters the models form.
With my Immortals in X formation they get hyperblasterbooster power instead of the U formation flickersteppingprotocol which lets me get enough range to hit your Guardsmen at range 48".
Is it meaningful? Yeah, but is it a hassle? Also yeah. Finally, does it make a lick of sense? No. Therefore letter formations for units is not a good idea to implement into 40k. Neither is jigsaw list building, good for you if you're able to take jigsaw list building to the next level while us mere mortals just look for synergy and the ability to deal with various enemy lists and occasionally build slightly worse lists because we aren't great jigsaw list builders, but should we really be punished for that? Why should I be encouraged to replace my Lokhust Heavy Destroyers for a unit of Deathmarks and a Hexmark Destroyer to make up the last 40 points instead of just adding a couple of more Immortals to that 5-man Immortal unit I already have? I want to play with Lokhust Heavy Destroyers.
Now, people might say I am harsh, but I have also been playing since 2nd edition and it's always about the optimal choice in each edition, which usually meant barebone squads with the occasional plasma or whatever the math showed was the next best thing.
It has already been explained previously in the thread that blinging units out can be highly encouraged by making them very points-efficient without spitting long-term collectors such as yourself in the eye when they say your barebones units you have after GW told you that's what you were supposed to have for 7 editions is suddenly complete trash.
Yeah, I'm a little concerned by all the "ditching WYSIWYG would never happen but if it did it's not that bad". No, my friends may not know the difference between a barbed strangler and a deathspitter, but *I do*. And like catbarf says, sometimes you will absolutely need to have a little dot or a different base color or something... and I find that things degrade rapidly from there. Most of the solutions that solve the Wrack example are aesthetic nonstarters to me. If I'm having to compromise the aesthetics of the models and the table for gameplay purposes, it means I need to think about another game. That aesthetic of beautifully sculpted and painted models on thematic tables with nicely arranged terrain is maybe the one thing about 40k that has remained consistently brilliant over the decades.
Tyran wrote: Something I did like is that GW is trying to make weapons sidegrades.
I do believe that unit wide weapon options must be sidegrades when possible, with only individual model weapon upgrades like special and heavy weapons requiring point costs.
wouldn't that be better acomplished by, i dunno, core mechanics that affect weapon types diffently?
GL? Good against units in buildings and cover, Flamer even more effective against cover and targets morale, Stubbers/ HB surpress potentially, etc...
catbarf wrote: Ditching WYSIWYG is an option, but WYSIWYG exists to help both players to keep track of what's on the field. My wife has three units of Wracks, and now each unit of 5 models gets 4 special weapons. Even if we give the Wracks the weapons that aren't modeled (because it makes a pretty substantial difference), how do we track which model has which weapon? Colored dots on the bases, I guess?
I would never ditch it for units with multiple models unless it made sense like Tomb Blades. Wracks would just be as-is.
The Wrack sheet got the crap beat out of it. Their one kindness was letting untethering the upgrades from the Acothyst so you can use him to build a unit if he has upgrades. Stinger Pistol is still a super dud, but I don't it's ever been compelling.
Daedalus81 wrote: I don't think the 'if my model doesn't have it then I'm punished' angle works entirely, either.
It's definitely the case that there are degrees of "wrongness" with the upgrades being free. A couple of TH on some Tactical Sgts is probably pretty inconsequential (though very possibly isn't given the value of D2) and is even relatively quick and easy to change if you really want to. The real problems lie with units like Death Company, where the standard BP/CS loadout is just wrong. If every model doesn't have at least the plasma pistol and power weapon combo you're losing out on a massive lethality upgrade. Same with LR sponsons, or taking 5-man Deathwatch Killteams. There are simply far too many scenarios where the free upgrades break the balance of the game to excuse it in any way. The situations where you're only slightly missing out on things like Sgt plasma pistols will be massively outweighed by those where your units aren't all equipped with a bunch of previously esoteric options that are now the de facto standard.
Gene St. Ealer wrote: Yeah, I'm a little concerned by all the "ditching WYSIWYG would never happen but if it did it's not that bad". No, my friends may not know the difference between a barbed strangler and a deathspitter, but *I do*. And like catbarf says, sometimes you will absolutely need to have a little dot or a different base color or something... and I find that things degrade rapidly from there. Most of the solutions that solve the Wrack example are aesthetic nonstarters to me. If I'm having to compromise the aesthetics of the models and the table for gameplay purposes, it means I need to think about another game. That aesthetic of beautifully sculpted and painted models on thematic tables with nicely arranged terrain is maybe the one thing about 40k that has remained consistently brilliant over the decades.
If someone shows up and tells me all these Warriors are equipped with Deathspitters then I don't care much if they're actually different models. If they show up with units with different loadouts then it needs to be visually distinct, but it could be a different gun and it wouldn't matter to me. As long as I can understand when a unit is different.
Daedalus81 wrote: I don't think the 'if my model doesn't have it then I'm punished' angle works entirely, either.
It's definitely the case that there are degrees of "wrongness" with the upgrades being free. A couple of TH on some Tactical Sgts is probably pretty inconsequential (though very possibly isn't given the value of D2) and is even relatively quick and easy to change if you really want to. The real problems lie with units like Death Company, where the standard BP/CS loadout is just wrong. If every model doesn't have at least the plasma pistol and power weapon combo you're losing out on a massive lethality upgrade. Same with LR sponsons, or taking 5-man Deathwatch Killteams. There are simply far too many scenarios where the free upgrades break the balance of the game to excuse it in any way. The situations where you're only slightly missing out on things like Sgt plasma pistols will be massively outweighed by those where your units aren't all equipped with a bunch of previously esoteric options that are now the de facto standard.
Death Company forgot to up the chainsword like the other weapons for some reason.
Otherwise if you wanted to tell me everyone in the squad has a plasma pistol I'm personally ok with that. I think plasma has enough of a downside that you won't overcharge much. I get why it would still bug people though.
Daedalus81 wrote: I wouldn't skip WYSIWYG entirely. Just for vehicle stuff, mostly. The most egregious issues are with Orks, really. There's lots of wagons without deffrollas and trukks without wrecking balls. Those aren't as simple, but I'm personally fine with just agreeing that the ramshackle vehicle has the capability.
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Voss wrote: And now its even weirder with the combat patrol rules, where it expects an exact load-out, even if its something that you'd rarely (or never) use in the main game. That's an utterly baffling turn.
Oh, yea. I looked at the one for TS and it had bp / chainsword on the Tzaangors. Both loadouts are fine, but I definitely prefer blades. I'd hate for the CP to lead someone to build the models a certain way, but most of them seem equivalent so far. They also had the missile rack on a different model from the heavy weapon, which is fine, but that's a competitive optimization thing that I don't think matters in most games.
How would you handle a Baneblade with no sponsons (or one sponson set)?
Currently it is required to take 1 set, and has the option (free) for a second set. The set of sponsons nets you 2 Twin Heavy Bolters and 2 Lascannons, so not taking the sponsons is a significant firepower degrade (and if you say otherwise, I encourage you to put 0 heavy weapons on your devastators, and then take 2 heavy weapons of your next devastator squad also).
Should I just bite the bullet and pay 50-100 pts more than my unit's actual effectiveness? Is WYSIWYG gone? What's the deal?
If someone doesn't have all the sponsons then I'm totally OK with counts as.
Maybe the top table guys will be grumpy, but I imagine someone going for mid to upper tables still has sponsons they can put on. It's been quite common to take them on and off as points fluctuate so I can't envision many people lack that capacity.
I'm sure the game will be much better balanced for people just starting new armies with 10th in mind, and GW can reasonably balance around assuming a unit has all the bells and whistles. But there used to be choice that came from deciding how much to invest in a single unit, or whether an upgrade would actually be useful to how you intend to deploy the unit, and not all of that was stuff you could number-crunch out. Was doubling the cost of Termagants to triple their fire output worthwhile? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Was it worth putting four special weapons on your squad of Scions? Depends on what you were going to do with them. Was giving a Tactical Squad sergeant a thunder hammer worthwhile? That was up to how you employed the squad, and maybe it was worth the points or maybe it wasn't.
But no, now in 10th he has a thunder hammer regardless because there is no real choice. And if the model has a chainsword, you don't even get to say 'well, at least that can buy me a thunder hammer elsewhere' anymore. You get nothing- besides the question of whether you're going to play WYSIWYG anymore.
So if how I employed a squad before dictated wether or not spending pts on an option was worth it, and it worked to my satisfaction without the option, and I employ the squad the same now & get similar results.... Do I really need to go to the effort of converting my finished model now that the upgrade costs 0?
Nope.
Daedalus81 wrote: If someone shows up and tells me all these Warriors are equipped with Deathspitters then I don't care much if they're actually different models. If they show up with units with different loadouts then it needs to be visually distinct, but it could be a different gun and it wouldn't matter to me. As long as I can understand when a unit is different.
Warriors are a perfect example of the problem.
Deathspitters are a basic weapon for the unit. In prior editions, you could viably field a full unit of Warriors with all Deathspitters. Maybe they were actually modeled with Devourers, but you don't know the difference and it isn't an issue. They could take heavy weapons but that cost points so fielding just basic weapons was fine.
In 10th, one in three Warriors can take a Venom Cannon and one in three can take a Barbed Strangler. These are straight upgrades over the Deathspitter, with no downsides, and now they're free- or rather, their cost is rolled into the base cost of the unit, so you're paying for them either way.
So a three-model Warrior squad now actually has one Deathspitter, one Venom Cannon, and one Barbed Strangler, and somehow you need to track that. Or if you just field the unit with what they're modeled as, you're losing out on heavy weapons, and that's a significant reduction in firepower.
Daedalus81 wrote: If someone shows up and tells me all these Warriors are equipped with Deathspitters then I don't care much if they're actually different models. If they show up with units with different loadouts then it needs to be visually distinct, but it could be a different gun and it wouldn't matter to me. As long as I can understand when a unit is different.
Warriors are a perfect example of the problem.
Deathspitters are a basic weapon for the unit. In prior editions, you could viably field a full unit of Warriors with all Deathspitters. Maybe they were actually modeled with Devourers, but you don't know the difference and it isn't an issue. They could take heavy weapons but that cost points so fielding just basic weapons was fine.
In 10th, one in three Warriors can take a Venom Cannon and one in three can take a Barbed Strangler. These are straight upgrades over the Deathspitter, with no downsides, and now they're free.
So a three-model Warrior squad now actually has one Deathspitter, one Venom Cannon, and one Barbed Strangler, and somehow you need to track that. Or if you just field the unit with what they're modeled as, you're losing out on heavy weapons, and that's a significant reduction in firepower.
There's no clean solution here.
Oh there is a clean solution. WYSIWYG. You want your non-basic options? Go buy some bitz.
ccs wrote: So if how I employed a squad before dictated wether or not spending pts on an option was worth it, and it worked to my satisfaction without the option, and I employ the squad the same now & get similar results.... Do I really need to go to the effort of converting my finished model now that the upgrade costs 0?
ccs wrote: Oh there is a clean solution. WYSIWYG. You want your non-basic options? Go buy some bitz.
GW could implement AOS1.0's 'field as many models as you like' army-building and I bet you'd defend it. 'I can still field my army just like before, so what's the big deal? If it bothers you, go buy more kits'.
Daedalus81 wrote: If someone shows up and tells me all these Warriors are equipped with Deathspitters then I don't care much if they're actually different models. If they show up with units with different loadouts then it needs to be visually distinct, but it could be a different gun and it wouldn't matter to me. As long as I can understand when a unit is different.
Warriors are a perfect example of the problem.
Deathspitters are a basic weapon for the unit. In prior editions, you could viably field a full unit of Warriors with all Deathspitters. Maybe they were actually modeled with Devourers, but you don't know the difference and it isn't an issue. They could take heavy weapons but that cost points so fielding just basic weapons was fine.
In 10th, one in three Warriors can take a Venom Cannon and one in three can take a Barbed Strangler. These are straight upgrades over the Deathspitter, with no downsides, and now they're free- or rather, their cost is rolled into the base cost of the unit, so you're paying for them either way.
So a three-model Warrior squad now actually has one Deathspitter, one Venom Cannon, and one Barbed Strangler, and somehow you need to track that. Or if you just field the unit with what they're modeled as, you're losing out on heavy weapons, and that's a significant reduction in firepower.
There's no clean solution here.
Warriors also serve as an example of different GW trends and where they work and where they don't (and where GW clearly struggled).
Deathspitters vs Devourers? clear sidegrades so both being free causes no issue. Each one has a preferred type of target.
Venom cannons and Barbed stranglers? blatant upgrades and should cost points.
And then there is the consolidated melee weapons and while ugly, it is the minor devil compared to no point costs (it is pretty much impossible to make boneswords sidegrades to scything talons and rending claws. I know I have tried).
Daedalus81 wrote:If someone doesn't have all the sponsons then I'm totally OK with counts as.
Maybe the top table guys will be grumpy, but I imagine someone going for mid to upper tables still has sponsons they can put on. It's been quite common to take them on and off as points fluctuate so I can't envision many people lack that capacity.
Daedalus81 wrote:If someone doesn't have all the sponsons then I'm totally OK with counts as.
Maybe the top table guys will be grumpy, but I imagine someone going for mid to upper tables still has sponsons they can put on. It's been quite common to take them on and off as points fluctuate so I can't envision many people lack that capacity.
That's just the thing, though:
1) I do lack the capacity for certain units. Many of mine are the old Forge World Resin ones (including all of my Shadowswords, that don't even have the lascannon turrets because they have the Arkurion-pattern targeters); the ones that aren't were purchased well before the current box, when the Shadowsword and Baneblade boxes were split and they only came with one sponson each.
2) I don't want to:
- Spend more money to buy sponson upgrade sprues from GW or eBay or whatever
- Tear apart my beautifully painted and decaled superheavy tanks, each with a storied history, to slap more sponsons on and then fix the paint.
Why didn't I magnetize, you ask? Because consistency. Stormsword 14 Aggressor has all four sponsons, as the Company Commander for 4th Company, but Stormsword 24 Akilla and Stormsword 34 Honorum have one sponson set each. That's the fact of those tanks. Back in the day, this made them cheaper; a "consolation" prize in some editions, or genuinely the best choice in others. Either way, it was fine that Aggressor was XYZ points more expensive than Akilla or Honorum, and it was okay that they were cheaper, because at the very least if it wasn't the best choice, it at least wasn't the worst, either.
But now? Its' just the worst. Period. No reason whatsoever.
Now, people might say I am harsh, but I have also been playing since 2nd edition and it's always about the optimal choice in each edition, which usually meant barebone squads with the occasional plasma or whatever the math showed was the next best thing.
It has already been explained previously in the thread that blinging units out can be highly encouraged by making them very points-efficient without spitting long-term collectors such as yourself in the eye when they say your barebones units you have after GW told you that's what you were supposed to have for 7 editions is suddenly complete trash.
Nah, they might be trash right now, but with points they'd still be trash. The difference is that with points you would have the illusion that you are making a choice.
The pendulum of editions is real and no amount of point scraping and adjustment will change that. I have lived too long to still think that there is some magical moment where all options are viable or meaningful. I mean, hope lives eternal and all, but I am too old for that.
However, I do believe in sunsetting(something I have argued for before), so if some old units are underpowered or unusable I will either keep them in a display cabinet or reuse them for something else. I know there are a lot of D&D players that want every unit and option under the sun, but for a wargame that has a company intent on releasing new models every cycle it's just a jenga tower waiting to collapse.
Regarding the jigsaw puzzle statement: It's a meaningful choice. If you don't like it that's fine by me, but I doubt that there are any meaningful choices in the game apart from that. Even if we had every weapon still with points the choices would be meaningless illusions. Also, couldn't you argue that the old FOC was just a different jigsaw puzzle?
There is also the problem that this is a nearly 40 year old game. Over the past 40 years there have been a lot, and I mean a lot, of changes to game design, and how to approach things. To expect that every model, every option, and a lot of other things is still legal after 40 years is just very optimistic.
GW could implement AOS1.0's 'field as many models as you like' army-building and I bet you'd defend it. 'I can still field my army just like before, so what's the big deal? If it bothers you, go buy more kits'.
Let us not exaggerate things. What you are referring to is AoS 0.0 which was insane. It was also a part of the Kirby era and for those who remember Kirby wanted us to believe that GW models was like buying an iPhone or a Ferrari - a brand. 40k was also a disaster in that era. I mean, instead of free upgrades we got free transports and everything. Fun times.
I'm of the opinion that a free wargear system could be fine, as long as you balance every weapon choice and there are no obvious "X weapons will always be better than weapon Y". But that would require a massive overhaul to 40k. Based on the Index and Munitorum Field Manual I get the impression that the free wargear change was something that happened very late in the development process.
With regards to WYSIWYG, that's never been an issue in any of the FLGS I've played at, and only two local tournaments I've been to. I think for the beer & pretzels types this isn't a big deal, but it's a giant gut punch to people who do have an environment that cares about WYSIWYG or likes to compete in tournaments where it's mandatory. It also reeks of greed (along with arbitrary unit sizes of say 3 or 6 for a 5 man box).
As for army building, I don't mind them setting certain units as a minimum of 10 for instance (like troops) but it's bizarre when it doesn't work with transport capacities like a Tac Squad and a Razorback, or requiring some goofy combat squads like Dark Eldar to hop on a Venom.
I think removing the option to add single units (to finalize your points costs) is a big step back. I can see one argument where they've started doing 1/2 points on models, Boyz for instance, but you could just as easily say you must purchase two at a time to resolve that; nearly every other model is a whole number and its easy to figure out what the current PPM is.
Eldarsif wrote: Regarding the jigsaw puzzle statement: It's a meaningful choice. If you don't like it that's fine by me, but I doubt that there are any meaningful choices in the game apart from that. Even if we had every weapon still with points the choices would be meaningless illusions. Also, couldn't you argue that the old FOC was just a different jigsaw puzzle?
I have argued the old FOC was a bad idea, battlefield roles were arbitrary and just made it difficult to field healthy armies for unfortunate factions while allowing unhealthy armies without great difficulty because the faction was fortunate to have rules and battlefield roles that let it build the unhealthy armies without going against the FOC. I think anti-secondaries that punish spamming a unit type such as VEHICLES/MONSTERS is a better way to curb unhealthy armies. I suppose you like the old FOC because it created some of the same difficult choices in army building?
I should have added the lack of battlefield roles as something I like and the lack of incentives for balanced armies as something I dislike in the other thread.
catbarf wrote: Even if we give the Wracks the weapons that aren't modeled (because it makes a pretty substantial difference), how do we track which model has which weapon? Colored dots on the bases, I guess?
Use different kinds of models for each weapon, like a Space Marine, an Ork, etc. Or just say in which order models always get killed off so you know that whenever there are 2 models left they have weapons X and Y. It took me 4 hours which I was supposed to be spending studying for my last final to write out the Necrons points which have options over in the Proposed Rules section. If you're bothered about points just change them and use your own points. If you're not going to try to increase internal balance beyond making naked squads not completely trash and having more fluid unit sizes then you're not going to break anything.
Daedalus81 wrote: I wouldn't skip WYSIWYG entirely. Just for vehicle stuff, mostly. The most egregious issues are with Orks, really. There's lots of wagons without deffrollas and trukks without wrecking balls. Those aren't as simple, but I'm personally fine with just agreeing that the ramshackle vehicle has the capability.
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Voss wrote: And now its even weirder with the combat patrol rules, where it expects an exact load-out, even if its something that you'd rarely (or never) use in the main game. That's an utterly baffling turn.
Oh, yea. I looked at the one for TS and it had bp / chainsword on the Tzaangors. Both loadouts are fine, but I definitely prefer blades. I'd hate for the CP to lead someone to build the models a certain way, but most of them seem equivalent so far. They also had the missile rack on a different model from the heavy weapon, which is fine, but that's a competitive optimization thing that I don't think matters in most games.
How would you handle a Baneblade with no sponsons (or one sponson set)?
Currently it is required to take 1 set, and has the option (free) for a second set. The set of sponsons nets you 2 Twin Heavy Bolters and 2 Lascannons, so not taking the sponsons is a significant firepower degrade (and if you say otherwise, I encourage you to put 0 heavy weapons on your devastators, and then take 2 heavy weapons of your next devastator squad also).
Should I just bite the bullet and pay 50-100 pts more than my unit's actual effectiveness? Is WYSIWYG gone? What's the deal?
In a 2000pt game, how much of a difference in the games outcome would result from shorting yourself 2 twin heavy bolters and 2 lascannons? Serious question.
I can write a 2k pt foot guard list is looking at about 23 heavy bolters and 15 lascannons (including 6 ordnance battery lascannons). Will being short 2 of each make a difference in the game for me? Probably not, realistically I would expect to probably lose more than that number in the first turn of the game.
If you look at the baneblade in terms of its expected damage output (i.e. average damage done to enemies given the likely damage that the baneblade will suffer itself) over the course of the game with those weapons vs without them, I'm guessing its probably only going to come out to a 5% swing at most, which might just be within margin of error. Will you have games where it makes all thedifference? Yes. Will you have games where it makes no difference at all? Also, yes. Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.
Daedalus81 wrote:If someone doesn't have all the sponsons then I'm totally OK with counts as.
Maybe the top table guys will be grumpy, but I imagine someone going for mid to upper tables still has sponsons they can put on. It's been quite common to take them on and off as points fluctuate so I can't envision many people lack that capacity.
Daedalus81 wrote:If someone doesn't have all the sponsons then I'm totally OK with counts as.
Maybe the top table guys will be grumpy, but I imagine someone going for mid to upper tables still has sponsons they can put on. It's been quite common to take them on and off as points fluctuate so I can't envision many people lack that capacity.
That's just the thing, though:
1) I do lack the capacity for certain units. Many of mine are the old Forge World Resin ones (including all of my Shadowswords, that don't even have the lascannon turrets because they have the Arkurion-pattern targeters); the ones that aren't were purchased well before the current box, when the Shadowsword and Baneblade boxes were split and they only came with one sponson each.
2) I don't want to:
- Spend more money to buy sponson upgrade sprues from GW or eBay or whatever
- Tear apart my beautifully painted and decaled superheavy tanks, each with a storied history, to slap more sponsons on and then fix the paint.
Why didn't I magnetize, you ask? Because consistency. Stormsword 14 Aggressor has all four sponsons, as the Company Commander for 4th Company, but Stormsword 24 Akilla and Stormsword 34 Honorum have one sponson set each. That's the fact of those tanks. Back in the day, this made them cheaper; a "consolation" prize in some editions, or genuinely the best choice in others. Either way, it was fine that Aggressor was XYZ points more expensive than Akilla or Honorum, and it was okay that they were cheaper, because at the very least if it wasn't the best choice, it at least wasn't the worst, either.
But now? Its' just the worst. Period. No reason whatsoever.
Right - and I think you're largely an edge case that I would be happy to accommodate. Really, I'm happy to accommodate everyone ( within reason ). Obviously other people can feel differently and I feel bad if someone was to care enough to enforce such a weakness.
Yes, this problem could be solved by GW going back, but I don't see them doing that. So finding a way to navigate it seems like the next best option.
chaos0xomega wrote: Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.
Are you taking the piss? Who is paying for the other lascannons in your list that Timmy doesn't get because he just wants to field infantry without HWT? Why should you get any increase in damage output without paying for it? How much do you think 2 lascannons increases the firepower of a Predator with two lascannons?
chaos0xomega wrote: In a 2000pt game, how much of a difference in the games outcome would result from shorting yourself 2 twin heavy bolters and 2 lascannons? Serious question.
For Guard, it really is not just that one tank. It is several hunter killers, bolter sponsons that all should be melta/plasma, the sergeants from your 90-120 infantry without plasma/powersword, pintle mounts on every vehicle, and probably things I am not thinking of.
These were things that you might take if you had some points left at the end of your list making. Now, it is 100-200 9th edition points of equipment that you have included in the base price of things. A leman russ demolisher is 220 points now. Going off 9th, a rough estimate makes 40pts worth of that optional equipment. Now most peope at least took sponsons, so 30 points. So you are overpaying 30 points on a tank if you don't update its guns to 10th edition.
I've not looked too heavily into other armies, but for Guard this equipment price change can have very significant impacts on your lists.
Daedalus81 wrote: I wouldn't skip WYSIWYG entirely. Just for vehicle stuff, mostly. The most egregious issues are with Orks, really. There's lots of wagons without deffrollas and trukks without wrecking balls. Those aren't as simple, but I'm personally fine with just agreeing that the ramshackle vehicle has the capability.
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Voss wrote: And now its even weirder with the combat patrol rules, where it expects an exact load-out, even if its something that you'd rarely (or never) use in the main game. That's an utterly baffling turn.
Oh, yea. I looked at the one for TS and it had bp / chainsword on the Tzaangors. Both loadouts are fine, but I definitely prefer blades. I'd hate for the CP to lead someone to build the models a certain way, but most of them seem equivalent so far. They also had the missile rack on a different model from the heavy weapon, which is fine, but that's a competitive optimization thing that I don't think matters in most games.
How would you handle a Baneblade with no sponsons (or one sponson set)?
Currently it is required to take 1 set, and has the option (free) for a second set. The set of sponsons nets you 2 Twin Heavy Bolters and 2 Lascannons, so not taking the sponsons is a significant firepower degrade (and if you say otherwise, I encourage you to put 0 heavy weapons on your devastators, and then take 2 heavy weapons of your next devastator squad also).
Should I just bite the bullet and pay 50-100 pts more than my unit's actual effectiveness? Is WYSIWYG gone? What's the deal?
In a 2000pt game, how much of a difference in the games outcome would result from shorting yourself 2 twin heavy bolters and 2 lascannons? Serious question.
I can write a 2k pt foot guard list is looking at about 23 heavy bolters and 15 lascannons (including 6 ordnance battery lascannons). Will being short 2 of each make a difference in the game for me? Probably not, realistically I would expect to probably lose more than that number in the first turn of the game.
If you look at the baneblade in terms of its expected damage output (i.e. average damage done to enemies given the likely damage that the baneblade will suffer itself) over the course of the game with those weapons vs without them, I'm guessing its probably only going to come out to a 5% swing at most, which might just be within margin of error. Will you have games where it makes all thedifference? Yes. Will you have games where it makes no difference at all? Also, yes. Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.
This is a bad argument because it works for everything. 'Is getting a free 80pts of rhinos going to win you the game? No probably not. At least not more than 5% of the time. Therefore, all rhinos should be free.'
Is one free Deslation Marine going to win you the game? No, obviously not. That would be silly. Therefore, all Desolations Squads should be free.'
Yeah, I mean when running 3 Baneblades, suddenly 5% cost change is a 15% cost change on 1620 points, or 81 points. That's a whole extra Guard squad plus, or even a Commissar with Kurov's Aquila.
But I guess 10 guardsmen or making an enemy stratagem cost 1 CP more, permanently, aren't very significant buffs...
I mean when does it end?
"All guard squads should be 100 points. That extra 40 pts doesn't get you anything significant - maybe a Commissar - so I think this is fine."
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, I mean when running 3 Baneblades, suddenly 5% cost change is a 15% cost change on 1620 points, or 81 points.
Going off 9th ed points (because, although obviously flawed, that's the best approximation we can do), 5 sets of sponsons would be 200 points on those baneblades. Quite the thing to give up.
chaos0xomega wrote: Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.
Are you taking the piss? Who is paying for the other lascannons in your list that Timmy doesn't get because he just wants to field infantry without HWT? Why should you get any increase in damage output without paying for it? How much do you think 2 lascannons increases the firepower of a Predator with two lascannons?
But that's the point, hwt in infantry teams don't usually add that much to a units performance. A good portion of them will be removed from the table before they ever fire a single shot, of those that remain, half will miss their targets, of those that hit some percentage will fail to wound, the remainder will do something, that something probably will amount to a statistically insignificant difference in damage dealt to the enemy. Rinse/repeat each turn. Congratulations, at the end of the game spending 30% of your points budget on upgrades netted you a ~5% increase in lethality over baseline.
It's why gw made upgrades for guard squads free in 9th edition in the first place. Why were guard players being asked to effectively double the cost of their infantry teams to take upgrades, knowing that 1/4 to 1/3 of those upgrades would be removed from the table in the first turn against a competent opponent? Surprise surprise, eliminating the cost of upgrades and making the unit a flat price actually worked and produced a more competitive and better balanced army - and those who took advantage of it didn't entirely standardize on weapon choices as some here insist would happen.
As for your Predator anecdote, adding the lascannons doesn't actually double it firepower due to the strength disparity between weapons as well as the twin linked keyword, but let's call it a 40% increase, but because of how the games mechanics actually work that doesn't actually translate to a 40% increase in lethality (hence in part why in previous editions adding the lascannons was more like a 10-15% cost increase at a time when lascannon lethality was overall much higher than it is today. This is further compounded by the intangible nature of target priority - a Predator with 4 lascannons is a bigger target than a Predator with 2, bigger targets attract more attention, and thus die faster, which shortens the useful life of the unit and the overall lethal value of its weaponry. If a 2 lascannon pred will avg 16 pts of damage out in a typical game, a 4 lascannon pred might only avg 18 for this reason. You can argue that that's a 12.5% increase, but across an entire army that puts out ~300 pts of damage in a game that's actually less than a 1% change in performance... which goes back to the whole margin of error thing I mentioned before, it's insignificant, doesn't actually alter the outcome of a game.
Now across an entire army of upgrades? Sure that might run away from you a bit, 2 extra pts of damage becomes 20 - but both parties have equal access to it, and you don't both need to maximize it in order to maintain parity. If one side does maximize, the other side only actually needs to take some % of the options in order to offset the difference in performance and render the differential insignificant again - provided that the points system is otherwise fairly calculated to generate fairly balanced armies (which currently it is not and has several clear winners and losers).
I will leave you with another thought, the faction currently running away with the game is aeldari, but it isn't because the most powerful emerging builds for that faction are running riot with free upgrades - the majority of the power units are those with few if any upgrade options at all.
chaos0xomega wrote: Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.
Are you taking the piss? Who is paying for the other lascannons in your list that Timmy doesn't get because he just wants to field infantry without HWT? Why should you get any increase in damage output without paying for it? How much do you think 2 lascannons increases the firepower of a Predator with two lascannons?
But that's the point, hwt in infantry teams don't usually add that much to a units performance. A good portion of them will be removed from the table before they ever fire a single shot, of those that remain, half will miss their targets, of those that hit some percentage will fail to wound, the remainder will do something, that something probably will amount to a statistically insignificant difference in damage dealt to the enemy. Rinse/repeat each turn. Congratulations, at the end of the game spending 30% of your points budget on upgrades netted you a ~5% increase in lethality over baseline.
It's why gw made upgrades for guard squads free in 9th edition in the first place. Why were guard players being asked to effectively double the cost of their infantry teams to take upgrades, knowing that 1/4 to 1/3 of those upgrades would be removed from the table in the first turn against a competent opponent? Surprise surprise, eliminating the cost of upgrades and making the unit a flat price actually worked and produced a more competitive and better balanced army - and those who took advantage of it didn't entirely standardize on weapon choices as some here insist would happen.
As for your Predator anecdote, adding the lascannons doesn't actually double it firepower due to the strength disparity between weapons as well as the twin linked keyword, but let's call it a 40% increase, but because of how the games mechanics actually work that doesn't actually translate to a 40% increase in lethality (hence in part why in previous editions adding the lascannons was more like a 10-15% cost increase at a time when lascannon lethality was overall much higher than it is today. This is further compounded by the intangible nature of target priority - a Predator with 4 lascannons is a bigger target than a Predator with 2, bigger targets attract more attention, and thus die faster, which shortens the useful life of the unit and the overall lethal value of its weaponry. If a 2 lascannon pred will avg 16 pts of damage out in a typical game, a 4 lascannon pred might only avg 18 for this reason. You can argue that that's a 12.5% increase, but across an entire army that puts out ~300 pts of damage in a game that's actually less than a 1% change in performance... which goes back to the whole margin of error thing I mentioned before, it's insignificant, doesn't actually alter the outcome of a game.
Now across an entire army of upgrades? Sure that might run away from you a bit, 2 extra pts of damage becomes 20 - but both parties have equal access to it, and you don't both need to maximize it in order to maintain parity. If one side does maximize, the other side only actually needs to take some % of the options in order to offset the difference in performance and render the differential insignificant again - provided that the points system is otherwise fairly calculated to generate fairly balanced armies (which currently it is not and has several clear winners and losers).
I will leave you with another thought, the faction currently running away with the game is aeldari, but it isn't because the most powerful emerging builds for that faction are running riot with free upgrades - the majority of the power units are those with few if any upgrade options at all.
A rare case on dakka - someone actually knowing how this whole wargaming works. Exalted!
chaos0xomega wrote: In a 2000pt game, how much of a difference in the games outcome would result from shorting yourself 2 twin heavy bolters and 2 lascannons? Serious question.
For Guard, it really is not just that one tank. It is several hunter killers, bolter sponsons that all should be melta/plasma, the sergeants from your 90-120 infantry without plasma/powersword, pintle mounts on every vehicle, and probably things I am not thinking of.
These were things that you might take if you had some points left at the end of your list making. Now, it is 100-200 9th edition points of equipment that you have included in the base price of things. A leman russ demolisher is 220 points now. Going off 9th, a rough estimate makes 40pts worth of that optional equipment. Now most peope at least took sponsons, so 30 points. So you are overpaying 30 points on a tank if you don't update its guns to 10th edition.
I've not looked too heavily into other armies, but for Guard this equipment price change can have very significant impacts on your lists.
People are way too down on other weapon options. Melta lost range. Plasma isn't as safe. HB got SH1. You'll have other targets than just tanks and you have innate Lethal Hits.
Two LRBT OC PC kill 1.5 marines and two HB kills 1.8.
chaos0xomega wrote: Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.
Are you taking the piss? Who is paying for the other lascannons in your list that Timmy doesn't get because he just wants to field infantry without HWT? Why should you get any increase in damage output without paying for it? How much do you think 2 lascannons increases the firepower of a Predator with two lascannons?
But that's the point, hwt in infantry teams don't usually add that much to a units performance. A good portion of them will be removed from the table before they ever fire a single shot, of those that remain, half will miss their targets, of those that hit some percentage will fail to wound, the remainder will do something, that something probably will amount to a statistically insignificant difference in damage dealt to the enemy. Rinse/repeat each turn. Congratulations, at the end of the game spending 30% of your points budget on upgrades netted you a ~5% increase in lethality over baseline.
It's why gw made upgrades for guard squads free in 9th edition in the first place. Why were guard players being asked to effectively double the cost of their infantry teams to take upgrades, knowing that 1/4 to 1/3 of those upgrades would be removed from the table in the first turn against a competent opponent? Surprise surprise, eliminating the cost of upgrades and making the unit a flat price actually worked and produced a more competitive and better balanced army - and those who took advantage of it didn't entirely standardize on weapon choices as some here insist would happen.
As for your Predator anecdote, adding the lascannons doesn't actually double it firepower due to the strength disparity between weapons as well as the twin linked keyword, but let's call it a 40% increase, but because of how the games mechanics actually work that doesn't actually translate to a 40% increase in lethality (hence in part why in previous editions adding the lascannons was more like a 10-15% cost increase at a time when lascannon lethality was overall much higher than it is today. This is further compounded by the intangible nature of target priority - a Predator with 4 lascannons is a bigger target than a Predator with 2, bigger targets attract more attention, and thus die faster, which shortens the useful life of the unit and the overall lethal value of its weaponry. If a 2 lascannon pred will avg 16 pts of damage out in a typical game, a 4 lascannon pred might only avg 18 for this reason. You can argue that that's a 12.5% increase, but across an entire army that puts out ~300 pts of damage in a game that's actually less than a 1% change in performance... which goes back to the whole margin of error thing I mentioned before, it's insignificant, doesn't actually alter the outcome of a game.
Now across an entire army of upgrades? Sure that might run away from you a bit, 2 extra pts of damage becomes 20 - but both parties have equal access to it, and you don't both need to maximize it in order to maintain parity. If one side does maximize, the other side only actually needs to take some % of the options in order to offset the difference in performance and render the differential insignificant again - provided that the points system is otherwise fairly calculated to generate fairly balanced armies (which currently it is not and has several clear winners and losers).
I will leave you with another thought, the faction currently running away with the game is aeldari, but it isn't because the most powerful emerging builds for that faction are running riot with free upgrades - the majority of the power units are those with few if any upgrade options at all.
A rare case on dakka - someone actually knowing how this whole wargaming works. Exalted!
He’s wrong though. Currently the dual wraithcannon wraith knight is significantly better than the sword and shield.
Plus, all units miss and can die before acting, should everything be free then?
chaos0xomega wrote: Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.
Are you taking the piss? Who is paying for the other lascannons in your list that Timmy doesn't get because he just wants to field infantry without HWT? Why should you get any increase in damage output without paying for it? How much do you think 2 lascannons increases the firepower of a Predator with two lascannons?
But that's the point, hwt in infantry teams don't usually add that much to a units performance.
Are you high?
A Grav Cannon in a Tactical Squad, for example, does the absolute majority of damage. This is 8th, 9th and 10th still. It made the Tacticals outshoot Intercessors even though the Intercessors had better basic weapons. The Heavy Weapon is a huge asset.
EDIT: The principle is the same for Guard Infantry.
chaos0xomega wrote: Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.
Are you taking the piss? Who is paying for the other lascannons in your list that Timmy doesn't get because he just wants to field infantry without HWT? Why should you get any increase in damage output without paying for it? How much do you think 2 lascannons increases the firepower of a Predator with two lascannons?
But that's the point, hwt in infantry teams don't usually add that much to a units performance.
Are you high?
A Grav Cannon in a Tactical Squad, for example, does the absolute majority of damage. This is 8th, 9th and 10th still. It made the Tacticals outshoot Intercessors even though the Intercessors had better basic weapons. The Heavy Weapon is a huge asset.
Just to consider the guard infantry squad: 10 lasguns do about .55 damage to a marine, a single heavy bolter averages 1 damage. That one gun triples the threat of the infantry squad.
chaos0xomega wrote: Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.
Are you taking the piss? Who is paying for the other lascannons in your list that Timmy doesn't get because he just wants to field infantry without HWT? Why should you get any increase in damage output without paying for it? How much do you think 2 lascannons increases the firepower of a Predator with two lascannons?
But that's the point, hwt in infantry teams don't usually add that much to a units performance.
The thing I'm buying is the weapon. The squad that surrounds it? Those are ablative wounds to keep the thing firing who's secondary mission is to take objectives.
Yeah, Chaos's post is basically a combination of factually incorrect takes, New Math, and utter nonsense.
The argument at its core, once you strip out the pseudomathematical bs, is that taking a 1750pt army against a 2000pt army in 9th would still be a fair and balanced game because it's an 'insignificant' difference, and that doesn't pass the sniff test.
Dandelion wrote: Just to consider the guard infantry squad: 10 lasguns do about .55 damage to a marine, a single heavy bolter averages 1 damage. That one gun triples the threat of the infantry squad.
And now your unit actually does something but the lasguns do a bit more now with Lethal Wounds as well.
A Predator with a Twin Lascannon is worse than a Predator with a Twin Lascannon and two Lascannon sponsons.
How much worse?
In the absolute BEST CASE scenario, one without sponsons does 4/7ths the damage of one with.
That is a T13 target without Oath of Moment applied.
Against a T14 target (no Oath) it does 9/17ths of the damage.
Against a target of ANY OTHER TOUGHNESS, the sponsons double or more the damage.
Dandelion wrote: Just to consider the guard infantry squad: 10 lasguns do about .55 damage to a marine, a single heavy bolter averages 1 damage. That one gun triples the threat of the infantry squad.
And now your unit actually does something but the lasguns do a bit more now with Lethal Wounds as well.
Dandelion wrote: Just to consider the guard infantry squad: 10 lasguns do about .55 damage to a marine, a single heavy bolter averages 1 damage. That one gun triples the threat of the infantry squad.
And now your unit actually does something but the lasguns do a bit more now with Lethal Wounds as well.
Lethal Hits, you mean.
Standing stationary and with Lethal Hits, an Infantry Squad's heavy bolter actually averages 1.5 wounds against Marines.
The 7 lasguns from the squad + 2 laspistols, rapid firing with Lethal Hits, also average 1.5 damage. So that's 3 wounds total.
If the squad didn't take a heavy bolter, it'd have 9 lasguns and a laspistol, for a total of 1.76 wounds.
So even in 10th, benefitting from an army ability that makes lasguns actually pretty credible, adding a heavy bolter to an Infantry Squad nearly doubles its offensive output. That multiplier goes up further when you start looking at heavier stuff like autocannons or lascannons, against harder targets than basic Marines, or at the early turns where the Infantry won't be rapid firing or potentially able to fire their lasguns at all.
If attaching a heavy weapon was all of a 5% increase in damage then I don't think anyone would care about it becoming free, but turns out that number's actually a total asspull, so...
chaos0xomega wrote: But that's the point, hwt in infantry teams don't usually add that much to a units performance...
If you want to debate the specifics of how much something should cost, or whether you can do generic upgrade costs for weapons that have different roles (ie. should a melta and a plasma cost the same?), then that's fine. That's an interesting debate on specific roles vs general usefulness of weapons.
But at the end, these are upgrades. They make units better than they were. They should cost points.
This isn't rocket science.
Daedalus81 wrote: And now your unit actually does something but the lasguns do a bit more now with Lethal Wounds as well.
You're getting lost in the weeds again, Daed. Focus! It's not about Lasguns specifically, or even one specific example, they are just examples of the larger issue.
If attaching a heavy weapon was all of a 5% increase in damage then I don't think anyone would care about it becoming free, but turns out that number's actually a total asspull, so...
Yea totally meant lethal hits. I believe the 5% was in reference to a superheavies output wasn't it?
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H.B.M.C. wrote: Still missing the woods for the trees Daed. Focus! It's not about Lasguns specifically, or even one specific example, they are just examples of the larger issue.
Yea I went on a separate tangent and confused the topic.
On topic - it looks like the IS squad can take a 1 per 10 special, so, a proper 10 man can but one with a HW squad cant - same with vox. Nothing but straight lasguns? Not great.
I honestly believe that anyone who does not like the new unit sizes is not a fan of meaningful choices. When you can't snugly fit what you like MSU style everywhere you are more often than not forced to think what you are going for. It's one of the things I love(as well as frustrates me) in AoS. I can't just take exactly what I want and play around the system. I must commit to a choice and deal with the consequences. I was in an autumn league last autumn and my AoS list changed so much more than my 40k lists. Because if I had to change something in AoS it meant I would have to reorganize my entire army instead of snugly fitting something into an open slot.
This is a really strange point of view. Taking what you want is a meaningful choice. Tweaking lists so that you can fit something extra in, or giving up a unit to upgrade a bunch of weapons is a meaningful choice. Deciding that a unit's role does not require paying for a bunch of upgrades is a meaningful choice. With the way that unit sizes work, you can still use smaller units, you just pay the full cost for the next tier up, instead of doing it in a way that's granular. That's not a meaningful choice, that's just making things awkward and inflexible.
As I mentioned in my first post, I like the idea of many model and unit options being baked into the unit. Too many of these options are too hard to get the right points value for individually. Is a Meltagun worth 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 points on Unit X? What about on Unit Y? What is the right points for the Flamer on both those units?
Making them free allows the designers to concentrate on balancing the options against each other (Flamer vs Melta vs Plasma) while deciding one cost for the unit.
However, there are some options that just don't work, like optional sponsons that are free. The designers need to both decide on a baseline set of options while figuring out a value for the truly optional options.
Plus we're also forgetting the fluff/theme of an army.
Most of my 8th/9th Chaos rosters included 8-man Chaos units, as they were Khorne themed. Sometimes they were even 7-man, with an Exalted Champion joining them in the Rhino. My entire (completely invalid) Death Guard army is made up of 7-man units. I routinely take Tyranid units like Gaunts in multiples of 12 because of how they used to be back when I first started playing them, and flat 10's seem too 'human'.
Those choices have been removed in the new "points" system. And before someone says "You can still take a 7-man Plague Marine unit, you just pay for 10 Plague Marines", think about how silly you'll sound actually writing that as a genuine suggestion.
alextroy wrote: As I mentioned in my first post, I like the idea of many model and unit options being baked into the unit. Too many of these options are too hard to get the right points value for individually. Is a Meltagun worth 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 points on Unit X? What about on Unit Y? What is the right points for the Flamer on both those units?
Making them free allows the designers to concentrate on balancing the options against each other (Flamer vs Melta vs Plasma) while deciding one cost for the unit.
On the flip side, if they're free and you have to balance them against one another, then you run into the same problem- how a flamer stacks up against a plasma gun is going to be different for a BS3+ unit than a BS4+ unit, or a deep striking unit vs a relatively static one.
You can, of course, start giving the same weapons different stats for different units, but then that gets to be a headache to remember. And at that point, wouldn't it just be cleaner to just keep the weapons the same, but have the costs vary unit-by-unit?
FWIW I agree with you that I like the idea of baking 'standard' equipment into the unit and offering sidegrades that give you interesting choices rather than just Budget vs Expensive options. I'm just not sure it actually makes it easier to balance.
alextroy wrote: As I mentioned in my first post, I like the idea of many model and unit options being baked into the unit. Too many of these options are too hard to get the right points value for individually. Is a Meltagun worth 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 points on Unit X? What about on Unit Y? What is the right points for the Flamer on both those units?
And to that, I call bull. The issue with these guns wasn't the individual points - I think that's just false dilemma of the highest order there - because the real issue was that you'd find the one gun that was the best in most situations (for a long time the plasma gun), and just take that. Flamers might be better in some situations, and meltas in others, but the plasma would do in the majority of situations your unit would find itself in, so it didn't matter whether it was 5 points or 6 points or 8 points or 10 points - it's what'd get the most use, so it was taken.
If you better define the roles for individual weapons, then this would cease to be an issue. From everything I've read/watched, cover is a much bigger deal in 10th, and things with "Ignore Cover" could be very important. Instant win for the Flamer. Overwatch has greater applications, and a weapon that auto-hits is very good there. Another tick for the Flamer. Grenade Launchers have received a boost (for those that have them), and you could define it differently from the plasma gun. And then you have the meltagun in a completely different role as anti-tank... or would have if GW hadn't left it behind and not upgraded it like they did other AT weapons like Lascannons.
These weapons are better than the default weapons. The idea that they should be free because working out how many points they should be is "too hard" is absolute bunk.
alextroy wrote: As I mentioned in my first post, I like the idea of many model and unit options being baked into the unit. Too many of these options are too hard to get the right points value for individually. Is a Meltagun worth 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 points on Unit X? What about on Unit Y? What is the right points for the Flamer on both those units?
And to that, I call bull. The issue with these guns wasn't the individual points - I think that's just false dilemma of the highest order there - because the real issue was that you'd find the one gun that was the best in most situations (for a long time the plasma gun), and just take that. Flamers might be better in some situations, and meltas in others, but the plasma would do in the majority of situations your unit would find itself in, so it didn't matter whether it was 5 points or 6 points or 8 points or 10 points - it's what'd get the most use, so it was taken.
If you better define the roles for individual weapons, then this would cease to be an issue. From everything I've read/watched, cover is a much bigger deal in 10th, and things with "Ignore Cover" could be very important. Instant win for the Flamer. Overwatch has greater applications, and a weapon that auto-hits is very good there. Another tick for the Flamer. Grenade Launchers have received a boost (for those that have them), and you could define it differently from the plasma gun. And then you have the meltagun in a completely different role as anti-tank... or would have if GW hadn't left it behind and not upgraded it like they did other AT weapons like Lascannons.
These weapons are better than the default weapons. The idea that they should be free because working out how many points they should be is "too hard" is absolute bunk.
Part of the problem has GW also just increasing wargear bloat, thus I'm not highly opposed to the idea of changing combi weapons yet again as 10e did as one of the few positive changes. But similar to how in real warfare the differences of rifles are meaningless on the company level, or how all hand weapons are just hand weapons as Warhammer Fantasy understood, a lot of gak could be rolled into blanket definitions to encourage conversions for aesthetics while maintaining gameplay standards. The cardinal example of such weapons bloat before Primaris to me is the grav gun, which has always just been effectively competing with the plasma gun and meltagun for a role. Truly, we have no need for grav guns and could simply slap it and the plasma gun as identical weapons in rules and forget about needing to define the grav gun in some asinine manner from the other heavy infantry deleter. Worse than points is when you have so many ways to skin a cat and need to figure out what the hell you're committing to when gluing that gun on unless you're using magnets.
alextroy wrote: As I mentioned in my first post, I like the idea of many model and unit options being baked into the unit. Too many of these options are too hard to get the right points value for individually. Is a Meltagun worth 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 points on Unit X? What about on Unit Y? What is the right points for the Flamer on both those units?
And to that, I call bull. The issue with these guns wasn't the individual points - I think that's just false dilemma of the highest order there - because the real issue was that you'd find the one gun that was the best in most situations (for a long time the plasma gun), and just take that. Flamers might be better in some situations, and meltas in others, but the plasma would do in the majority of situations your unit would find itself in, so it didn't matter whether it was 5 points or 6 points or 8 points or 10 points - it's what'd get the most use, so it was taken.
If you better define the roles for individual weapons, then this would cease to be an issue. From everything I've read/watched, cover is a much bigger deal in 10th, and things with "Ignore Cover" could be very important. Instant win for the Flamer. Overwatch has greater applications, and a weapon that auto-hits is very good there. Another tick for the Flamer. Grenade Launchers have received a boost (for those that have them), and you could define it differently from the plasma gun. And then you have the meltagun in a completely different role as anti-tank... or would have if GW hadn't left it behind and not upgraded it like they did other AT weapons like Lascannons.
These weapons are better than the default weapons. The idea that they should be free because working out how many points they should be is "too hard" is absolute bunk.
You are welcome to your opinion, but I challenge you to find the proper points to make all the weapon options, including taking no options at all, for any single unit equally viable.
alextroy wrote: You are welcome to your opinion, but I challenge you to find the proper points to make all the weapon options, including taking no options at all, for any single unit equally viable.
This is just another way of asking for "perfect balance". Worse, it's demanding it in an attempt to prove your point. If we cannot create perfect, balance, it means you're "right". This is piss-poor attempt at a 'gotcha'.
It's also easier to attempt some strike of a better equilibrium when wargear is +5 to the base unit cost, then assuming the unit is taken with the best wargear; thus, meaning anyone running anything else is running overcosted units that reduces the ability to take more units in a list to counter a sub-optimal structure.
Furthermore, it may be hard to "prove" that 7pts is correct for a meltagun on a squad vs say 5pts, but it is very EASY to say that 0 pts is totally inappropriate.
One does not have to prove that something is worth exactly X points in order to refute that Y points is wrong. They must only prove that Y points are wrong and I think that is trivial.
"Is a thing better than the other thing? If yes, it costs more than.0 points"
chaos0xomega wrote: Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.
Are you taking the piss? Who is paying for the other lascannons in your list that Timmy doesn't get because he just wants to field infantry without HWT? Why should you get any increase in damage output without paying for it? How much do you think 2 lascannons increases the firepower of a Predator with two lascannons?
But that's the point, hwt in infantry teams don't usually add that much to a units performance. A good portion of them will be removed from the table before they ever fire a single shot, of those that remain, half will miss their targets, of those that hit some percentage will fail to wound, the remainder will do something, that something probably will amount to a statistically insignificant difference in damage dealt to the enemy. Rinse/repeat each turn. Congratulations, at the end of the game spending 30% of your points budget on upgrades netted you a ~5% increase in lethality over baseline.
It's why gw made upgrades for guard squads free in 9th edition in the first place. Why were guard players being asked to effectively double the cost of their infantry teams to take upgrades, knowing that 1/4 to 1/3 of those upgrades would be removed from the table in the first turn against a competent opponent? Surprise surprise, eliminating the cost of upgrades and making the unit a flat price actually worked and produced a more competitive and better balanced army - and those who took advantage of it didn't entirely standardize on weapon choices as some here insist would happen.
As for your Predator anecdote, adding the lascannons doesn't actually double it firepower due to the strength disparity between weapons as well as the twin linked keyword, but let's call it a 40% increase, but because of how the games mechanics actually work that doesn't actually translate to a 40% increase in lethality (hence in part why in previous editions adding the lascannons was more like a 10-15% cost increase at a time when lascannon lethality was overall much higher than it is today. This is further compounded by the intangible nature of target priority - a Predator with 4 lascannons is a bigger target than a Predator with 2, bigger targets attract more attention, and thus die faster, which shortens the useful life of the unit and the overall lethal value of its weaponry. If a 2 lascannon pred will avg 16 pts of damage out in a typical game, a 4 lascannon pred might only avg 18 for this reason. You can argue that that's a 12.5% increase, but across an entire army that puts out ~300 pts of damage in a game that's actually less than a 1% change in performance... which goes back to the whole margin of error thing I mentioned before, it's insignificant, doesn't actually alter the outcome of a game.
Now across an entire army of upgrades? Sure that might run away from you a bit, 2 extra pts of damage becomes 20 - but both parties have equal access to it, and you don't both need to maximize it in order to maintain parity. If one side does maximize, the other side only actually needs to take some % of the options in order to offset the difference in performance and render the differential insignificant again - provided that the points system is otherwise fairly calculated to generate fairly balanced armies (which currently it is not and has several clear winners and losers).
I will leave you with another thought, the faction currently running away with the game is aeldari, but it isn't because the most powerful emerging builds for that faction are running riot with free upgrades - the majority of the power units are those with few if any upgrade options at all.
A lascannon of 25 pts increases the cost of a 50 pts Guardsmen Squad by 3%, against a Ghost Ark the unit goes from inflicting 0,7 damage (with Born Soldiers) to 1,3, that's an increase of 77%. So really 25 pts for a lascannon is far too little.
The increased focus the Guardsmen will take from the enemy army will allow the rest of your army to inflict another 0,53333... damage per unit squared by the number of battle rounds which is 4% more damage across the entire army for EVERY SINGLE LASCANNON in a Guardsmen Squad, do you see now why it needs to cost points?
A lascannon does (1/6*2/6*4+1/6)/2*4,5=0,875 Damage to a Ghost Ark, 8 pts worth on average. A lasgun does (2/6*2/6*1+2/6)/3=0,148 Damage to a Ghost Ark 1,3 pts worth on average or lets say it shoots at a Necron Warrior instead so you get (2/6*2/6*2+2/6)/2=0,278 Damage 3,3 pts worth. Assuming you get two shots against a vehicle that's 10 points worth of value. If Infantry Squads in your list are a high priority target then you might only get one shot, if they are a low priority target you might get five shots. But if they become a higher priority target from taking the lascannon then the inclusion of that lascannon will have saved the life of some other unit that would have otherwise been the highest priority. You want durability on your high priority targets, offense on your low priority targets. Either way an increase in durability or offense is not worth 0 pts.
A Predator twin lascannon does 1/6*4/36*32/2*4,9=1,45 Damage or 1/36*32/36*32/2*4,9=1,94 with Oaths. Two lascannons do 2/6*4/6*4/2*4,9=2,18 or 2/36*32/36*32/2*4,9=3,87 with Oaths. An increase of 150% or 199% with Oaths. A CSM lascannon Predator in 5th cost 105, sponsons cost 60, an increase of 52%. Stop the sophistry.
Your opinions are both valid and irrelevant. The game designers got to make the call and they decided on take what you want, the unit is worth X points… until they decide to change their minds again. I’m not holding my breathe for the 3-6 months to see if it happens soon.
alextroy wrote: Your opinions are both valid and irrelevant. The game designers got to make the call and they decided on take what you want, the unit is worth X points… until they decide to change their minds again. I’m not holding my breathe for the 3-6 months to see if it happens soon.
Most of the playerbase wanting points instead of PL does matter.
vict0988 wrote: Most of the playerbase wanting points instead of PL does matter.
most of the GW customers don't care as long it is official
that those who play don't like it does not matter as long as they still play
GW doing it has no effect on sales or people playing the game, and it won't be a problem for GW unless they don't sell out on new releases or people start complaining on the official sites that they hardly find someone to play with because most people are playing something else
and those things won't happen, so what most of the players "want" or "like" does not matter as long as most of the customers still buy and play
vict0988 wrote: Most of the playerbase wanting points instead of PL does matter.
most of the GW customers don't care as long it is official that those who play don't like it does not matter as long as they still play
GW doing it has no effect on sales or people playing the game, and it won't be a problem for GW unless they don't sell out on new releases or people start complaining on the official sites that they hardly find someone to play with because most people are playing something else
and those things won't happen, so what most of the players "want" or "like" does not matter as long as most of the customers still buy and play
Would seeing a post from someone saying they're not playing 10th edition because its PL only change your mind? Would you accept the rationality that fewer people playing 40k in some way decreases the amount of 40k miniatures and books sold?
vict0988 wrote: Most of the playerbase wanting points instead of PL does matter.
most of the GW customers don't care as long it is official
that those who play don't like it does not matter as long as they still play
GW doing it has no effect on sales or people playing the game, and it won't be a problem for GW unless they don't sell out on new releases or people start complaining on the official sites that they hardly find someone to play with because most people are playing something else
and those things won't happen, so what most of the players "want" or "like" does not matter as long as most of the customers still buy and play
I suspect that this will actually have an impact on the bottom line however. Most of the recognisable outward facing GW content creators are doing it from a competitive angle a lot of the time, they sell coaching classes, list building sessions, analysis on events etc. and if those personas struggle to sell those sessions because of the list building process being too simple/irrelevant in a lot of ways, or become too critical too often it'll drive them and their consumers away. If the e-sports bunch start to complain and vanish then the competitive scene will shrink, meta chasing with shrink with it meaning less sales and a less recognisable product in the online space.
I'm maybe not wording that well and I'm not a PR person, but bored "professionals" who aren't happy have fewer customers, if they have less presence fewer people engage in the same practice, that practice is buying stuff to be in tournaments, tournaments shrink due to fewer people, local communities die off, sales drop.
I'd like to highlight another unit that I am currently having issues with: the tank commander.
The tank commander is a 240 point unit that can choose any leman russ turret gun. However, the different leman russes range from 180-220 points. So picking a demolisher, the most expensive variant, is the most efficient choice for points. However, it may not be the best choice tactically. So, looking at other variants, you have to factor in how many points you are "wasting" by paying 240 for a cheaper gun.
A vanquisher may be a decent (and certainly fluffy) choice for a tank commander. However, without some sort of discount it is very hard to justify.
vict0988 wrote: Most of the playerbase wanting points instead of PL does matter.
most of the GW customers don't care as long it is official
that those who play don't like it does not matter as long as they still play
GW doing it has no effect on sales or people playing the game, and it won't be a problem for GW unless they don't sell out on new releases or people start complaining on the official sites that they hardly find someone to play with because most people are playing something else
and those things won't happen, so what most of the players "want" or "like" does not matter as long as most of the customers still buy and play
I suspect that this will actually have an impact on the bottom line however. Most of the recognisable outward facing GW content creators are doing it from a competitive angle a lot of the time, they sell coaching classes, list building sessions, analysis on events etc. and if those personas struggle to sell those sessions because of the list building process being too simple/irrelevant in a lot of ways, or become too critical too often it'll drive them and their consumers away. If the e-sports bunch start to complain and vanish then the competitive scene will shrink, meta chasing with shrink with it meaning less sales and a less recognisable product in the online space.
I'm maybe not wording that well and I'm not a PR person, but bored "professionals" who aren't happy have fewer customers, if they have less presence fewer people engage in the same practice, that practice is buying stuff to be in tournaments, tournaments shrink due to fewer people, local communities die off, sales drop.
You're making the CAAC crowd salivate, this is exactly what they have been saying forever, get rid of points and anyone that likes them so we can make pew pew sounds and throw sand down our pants.
On the most basic level, a good approach for the game to take would be more consolidation. Earlier someone mentioned something like Squad Leader Pistol or the like and I think that it would work well for almost all squad leaders. Sure, my guardsmen would 'lose' plasma pistols, bolt pistols, and laspistols but honestly those are all tiny little details that make little to no difference to a battle of the scale of the typical ,40k fight. Those are all differences that only really matter for much smaller skirmishes. That also is why I'm happy that things like different kinds of power weapons being folded together although I do think that the Thunder Hammer should just have been made an alternative look for the power fist and assorted other heavy power weapons. You could also easily create a Light Squad Leader Melee Weapon and a heavy variety. Heavy and special weapons should also have some consolidation done to them but at least they for the most part have clearly different roles.
For other wargear options like vox casters I would just remove the model-bound benefit and make it a general rule for the units that have them while leaving the bits on the models as more of a nice visual extra just like countless other bits and pieces on your models.
That said, I find the point structure for unit sizes a little more of a problem because that's where it feels off. Can you imagine a warboss telling one of his nobs that he can't join on an attack because his mob isn't a nice round number? But then again, I'm still a little salty about the remnant squad being abolished for Guard.
As for sponsons and other big changes to tanks I think that they should just come with disadvantages. They're heavier and take more crew, so that could mean making the tank slower. Additionally, it means weakening the armour where such things are placed which could give those tanks a lower toughness or save. Other vehicle upgrades are things I'd just shove into the standard rules of the vehicle and make them more aesthetic choices.
vict0988 wrote: Most of the playerbase wanting points instead of PL does matter.
most of the GW customers don't care as long it is official
that those who play don't like it does not matter as long as they still play
GW doing it has no effect on sales or people playing the game, and it won't be a problem for GW unless they don't sell out on new releases or people start complaining on the official sites that they hardly find someone to play with because most people are playing something else
and those things won't happen, so what most of the players "want" or "like" does not matter as long as most of the customers still buy and play
I suspect that this will actually have an impact on the bottom line however. Most of the recognisable outward facing GW content creators are doing it from a competitive angle a lot of the time, they sell coaching classes, list building sessions, analysis on events etc. and if those personas struggle to sell those sessions because of the list building process being too simple/irrelevant in a lot of ways, or become too critical too often it'll drive them and their consumers away. If the e-sports bunch start to complain and vanish then the competitive scene will shrink, meta chasing with shrink with it meaning less sales and a less recognisable product in the online space.
I'm maybe not wording that well and I'm not a PR person, but bored "professionals" who aren't happy have fewer customers, if they have less presence fewer people engage in the same practice, that practice is buying stuff to be in tournaments, tournaments shrink due to fewer people, local communities die off, sales drop.
You're making the CAAC crowd salivate, this is exactly what they have been saying forever, get rid of points and anyone that likes them so we can make pew pew sounds and throw sand down our pants.
My concern is if that cycle does start that GW will panic and knee-jerk equipment costs in for everything without any consideration or thought, which would be just as bad as what we have now to some degree.
Trickstick wrote: I'd like to highlight another unit that I am currently having issues with: the tank commander.
The tank commander is a 240 point unit that can choose any leman russ turret gun. However, the different leman russes range from 180-220 points. So picking a demolisher, the most expensive variant, is the most efficient choice for points. However, it may not be the best choice tactically. So, looking at other variants, you have to factor in how many points you are "wasting" by paying 240 for a cheaper gun.
A vanquisher may be a decent (and certainly fluffy) choice for a tank commander. However, without some sort of discount it is very hard to justify.
Dudeface wrote:
I suspect that this will actually have an impact on the bottom line however. Most of the recognisable outward facing GW content creators are doing it from a competitive angle a lot of the time, they sell coaching classes, list building sessions, analysis on events etc. and if those personas struggle to sell those sessions because of the list building process being too simple/irrelevant in a lot of ways, or become too critical too often it'll drive them and their consumers away. If the e-sports bunch start to complain and vanish then the competitive scene will shrink, meta chasing with shrink with it meaning less sales and a less recognisable product in the online space.
I'm maybe not wording that well and I'm not a PR person, but bored "professionals" who aren't happy have fewer customers, if they have less presence fewer people engage in the same practice, that practice is buying stuff to be in tournaments, tournaments shrink due to fewer people, local communities die off, sales drop.
People making a living from 40k, be it directly involved into playing or being a content creator, you will find a way to make money or go for a different job
and there are a lot of people, be it the professional Tournament Orgas, STL sellers, painting classes, torunament coaches etc.
e-sports are a good comparison, as simply as just because Call of Duty (just a random pick because the last version was not very popular) becomes not worth covering any more does not mean the whole e-sports scene collapse but they are going for a different game
and in the case for 40k there is a good chance that it will be from the same publisher
worst case for the scene is that if 40k is not worth doing events, they switch to Horus Heresy, and you will see tournaments coming up, community rules for Xenos being allowed and guides on how to use your 40k armies there
best case is they switch to AoS or Lord of the Rings and the chance is very low that they pick a game from a different publisher like the e-sports scene is doing
vict0988 wrote: Most of the playerbase wanting points instead of PL does matter.
most of the GW customers don't care as long it is official
that those who play don't like it does not matter as long as they still play
GW doing it has no effect on sales or people playing the game, and it won't be a problem for GW unless they don't sell out on new releases or people start complaining on the official sites that they hardly find someone to play with because most people are playing something else
and those things won't happen, so what most of the players "want" or "like" does not matter as long as most of the customers still buy and play
Would seeing a post from someone saying they're not playing 10th edition because its PL only change your mind? Would you accept the rationality that fewer people playing 40k in some way decreases the amount of 40k miniatures and books sold?
well, I follow the Thousand Sons and Space Wolves Reddit groups as those are my armies and the last days the majority of posts were either painting/collecting (show off new stuff, what to buy or how to paint) and posts like "I made this Excel sheet to calculate the best unit composition"
people don't like PL but the community is already going full math-hammer mode to make the best possible list and those communities are currently more active than they were before (and people complaining are just told to buy more models)
so I don't see any impact of PL getting people to quit the game
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Dudeface wrote: My concern is if that cycle does start that GW will panic and knee-jerk equipment costs in for everything without any consideration or thought, which would be just as bad as what we have now to some degree.
I think this would actually be better for the game as only if they fail hard, they will consider doing it properly (like with AoS)
I suspect that this will actually have an impact on the bottom line however. Most of the recognisable outward facing GW content creators are doing it from a competitive angle a lot of the time, they sell coaching classes, list building sessions, analysis on events etc. and if those personas struggle to sell those sessions because of the list building process being too simple/irrelevant in a lot of ways, or become too critical too often it'll drive them and their consumers away. If the e-sports bunch start to complain and vanish then the competitive scene will shrink, meta chasing with shrink with it meaning less sales and a less recognisable product in the online space.
I'm maybe not wording that well and I'm not a PR person, but bored "professionals" who aren't happy have fewer customers, if they have less presence fewer people engage in the same practice, that practice is buying stuff to be in tournaments, tournaments shrink due to fewer people, local communities die off, sales drop.
There are a few assumptions nested within that though. That requires that:
- The 'e-sports bunch' dislike the new system enough to spot in significant quantities.
- The 'e-sports bunch' make up a significant portion of games workshops sales (afaik we don't know the revenue split by game line but 40k isn't their only product).
- The game being notionally easier to pick up and play doesn't attact more new customers than it alienates.
I don't doubt that GW will watch it closely, but I think it's a stretch to believe that it will significantly affect sales.
I suspect that this will actually have an impact on the bottom line however. Most of the recognisable outward facing GW content creators are doing it from a competitive angle a lot of the time, they sell coaching classes, list building sessions, analysis on events etc. and if those personas struggle to sell those sessions because of the list building process being too simple/irrelevant in a lot of ways, or become too critical too often it'll drive them and their consumers away. If the e-sports bunch start to complain and vanish then the competitive scene will shrink, meta chasing with shrink with it meaning less sales and a less recognisable product in the online space.
I'm maybe not wording that well and I'm not a PR person, but bored "professionals" who aren't happy have fewer customers, if they have less presence fewer people engage in the same practice, that practice is buying stuff to be in tournaments, tournaments shrink due to fewer people, local communities die off, sales drop.
There are a few assumptions nested within that though. That requires that:
- The 'e-sports bunch' dislike the new system enough to spot in significant quantities.
- The 'e-sports bunch' make up a significant portion of games workshops sales (afaik we don't know the revenue split by game line but 40k isn't their only product).
- The game being notionally easier to pick up and play doesn't attact more new customers than it alienates.
I don't doubt that GW will watch it closely, but I think it's a stretch to believe that it will significantly affect sales.
The 'e-sports bunch' are a social perception barometer for a good chunk of the playerbase however. It doesn't matter if they direct account for sales or even 1st hand effect, as tournament results and talk filters down even to the flgs it'll shift sales and create discussion. If the esports element suffers in any way then it will trickle down.
Any of those guys who quit the game, decide to keep playing 9th or whatever will just get replaced by new guys that will make content for 10th, and people searching for 40k on youtube will find those guys instead. As someone who plays fighting games I can tell you that this happens every time a new game in a series comes out and a bunch of the old guard get mad that it's been simplified.
Direct "E-Sport" sales is pretty low and not the big problem if GW loses them.
The problem is that they are a lot of the visual community and what creates hype and interest for the game outside of the official GW channels. If they stopped doing content from GW or stopped buying armies for tournaments GW would directly lose low single digit % of sales. I dont think any is disagreeing with that.
The risk though is that all the people who enjoy the battle reports, articles and videos from those people also lose interest in GW. If there is no surrounding hype it will feel less like that they are part of an active community. This is probably in the low tens % of sales this could affect.
But then there is the even larger killer. All those very casual people who mostly just hangs around at a club or in a friend group or sometimes show up to an LGS. Their main reason to be an active part of the community is that they have friends or club members who are active and they just hang on to it and could swap to any other game in a second if it looks more interesting. When Warmachine, X-Wing or locally Mesbg under the pandemic, showed up A TON OF people just swapped systems at once. The few people who hold the events in an area have a huge impact on what is actually going to be played. Most people rather switch games than host their own events. We went from a 40k focused club to barely any 40k or AoS during the pandemic cause we were there to play fun games with like minded people. Not just playing 40k. From 0 MESBG events in this part of the country for years we now have regular events and went from 6 players first tournament to 28 attendees in a few months and reached 23 players with just local players at events in less than a year. From only 40k we will soon have a Malifaux, Bolt Action and Mesbg weekend. Things can change faster than people think if just the right people in the community, the TOs and the content creators, swap systems. A huge chunk of the rest will follow.
yeah, it is the content creators, be it online of offline, that have a big impact on what is played and what people show interest in
be it YT channels, be it the local TO, store owner or club
and in the past I have seen people switching rather fast depending on those things
from Battletech to Warhammer Fantasy, and from Fantasy to 40k
if a lot of the content creators would switch from 40k to AoS or LotR, the impact for the community would be big, for GW not so much as they would just see a shift in sales while the 3rd party 40k supply would be devastated
problem for GW would be if people change to a different publisher, specially if the rules are not compatible with their model line (like Battletech instead of GDF or WP:FF)
kodos wrote: yeah, it is the content creators, be it online of offline, that have a big impact on what is played and what people show interest in
be it YT channels, be it the local TO, store owner or club
and in the past I have seen people switching rather fast depending on those things
from Battletech to Warhammer Fantasy, and from Fantasy to 40k
if a lot of the content creators would switch from 40k to AoS or LotR, the impact for the community would be big, for GW not so much as they would just see a shift in sales while the 3rd party 40k supply would be devastated
Sounds like a bunch of stupid people acting like a herd of cattle. Just running along blindly with the herd....
Or a bunch of rats following a piper.
welcome to the modern world
were a game is dead if the rules are not changing every 3 months and you cannot use non-official rules or models
were "miniature-agnostic" means that only if the publisher officially writes in the rulebook that you are allowed to use other models, you are actually allowed to use other models
40k is played because everyone plays it, not because it is a good game, or easy/cheap to get into, or the background being so unique that it only works with the dedicated rules
just because there is a lot of content
and the same will be true if that content switches to any other game
I guess my serious response is that even with the decreased cognitive load of, uh, addition, there are still much more significant barriers of entry to the "unwashed masses" mass market that 
yourself when the firefight comes. Noted.
after that some deine tuning of points and psy and you'd be pretty golden 
it's bizarre when it doesn't work with transport capacities like a 